


I'll be coming for your love, okay?

by fayrose



Category: The Last of Us
Genre: F/F, Healing, Hurt/Comfort, Post-Canon, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-29
Updated: 2020-08-17
Packaged: 2021-03-04 00:01:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 24,113
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24984268
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fayrose/pseuds/fayrose
Summary: Everything is broken, including Jackson. But when Ellie turns up half-dead at the gates, determined to see if Dina and JJ are okay before she leaves on what she intends to be her final journey, it prompts Dina turn to step up and be the hero and leader that she was always meant to be.This story will follow Ellie’s journey in recovering both her physical and mental health, and Dina’s journey to turn Jackson and its people into something she can be proud of. And, along the way, they’ll both work at putting their family back together.Switches between Ellie’s and Dina’s perspectives on the events that follow The Last of Us Part II.
Relationships: Dina/Ellie (The Last of Us)
Comments: 83
Kudos: 431





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> WARNINGS: Ellie is in a dark place at the beginning of this story. Her intended destination is to find the Fireflies and get them to do what they were going to do back in Salt Lake City because she thinks that it is the only way to atone. If that might be triggering to you, I suggest that you don’t read any further. There will also be mentions and instances of homophobia. There are a minority of people in Jackson who have been vocally homophobic towards Ellie and Dina, and a larger silent majority who ignored that homophobia or expressed it in less direct ways. There are also a lot of good people in Jackson. This will change over the course of the story as Dina holds them to account for it and pushes for change.  
> There are also mentions of JJ nursing. Yes, he’s a little older than the age at which many babies are weaned today, if they are breastfed at all. Which is their choice. However, given the circumstances of the world as a whole and Dina’s specific circumstances, this is what seems most realistic. She won’t have formula. He isn’t old enough for cows milk, especially without pasteurisation, and sterilising bottles would be very difficult and dangerous. This shouldn’t bother you, but if it does, just skim over it. It’ll only be mentions in passing.  
> I should also mention that Dina tries to justify Ellie’s actions in Seattle. Whatever you think of the moralities of the situation, that’s up to you. These are Dina’s opinions, not my own, and the that’s an important distinction.  
> Especially in the early parts, Ellie’s perspective is erratic and disorientated and her sections are written in a specific style to try to capture that.

## Dina

Moving back to Jackson was… a lot.

After Seattle, she had needed the empty space of the farm more than ever. It had been her dream for so long. A piece of land, her own crows and animals. Peace and quiet. There was nowhere better for her, Ellie and the baby to have the time alone they needed to heal and be the family that she knew they could be. Or so she had thought.

She missed it now. But what she missed was a home, not the wooden walls nor those goddamned windows that took Ellie a whole month to square off enough for them to be able to close them properly.

She missed the home where she had given birth to JJ. Where he had come a little early, so she had been given no choice but to scream and sweat her way through it with only Ellie by her side. It had been terrifying, thinking there might be something wrong to make him come so soon. But it seemed like he’d just been impatient. Kind of like someone his Mom. But Dina wouldn’t change it for anything. Ellie’s had been the first hands to hold him, the first human contact he’d ever known. If he’d come on time, she’d have given birth in the infirmary where Molly or one of the other medics would have brought him into the world.

No… the way it had happened, that had been right. Just the three of them. Their family. JJ and his moms against the world.

He’d cried for a week solid after she left.

It had been Jesse’s parents that had helped her move back to Jackson, even with Robin’s back playing up again. They had wanted her to move in with them. She couldn’t blame them for wanting JJ closer, but they had seemed almost excited about it. Almost like they were glad that Ellie had left. She wouldn’t have JJ in a house like that. Ellie was still his Mom. She’d just been hurting too deep to stay.

So, instead of staying with Jesse’s folks, Maria had given her Joel’s house, which felt… wrong. Like she was squatting in what was rightfully Ellie’s. But her and JJ together counted as a family and, in Jackson, that meant a house. Even if the ‘family’ she was now felt broken in two. Sundered when Ellie had walked out.

It had never been her plan, but she had left Ellie’s stuff at the farmhouse. Even most of the photos. She couldn’t stand looking at them not knowing if Ellie was coming back. She’d put off going back for them again and again. Even after Maria offered to send a patrol out to collect them. So now all she had of her were four photos (and JJ).

The first photo was of her and Ellie a month or so before JJ was born. Ellie looked so goddamned excited in that photo, her hand on the swell where JJ grew. She had traded away her PlayStation to get Jimmy – the guy with the best camera in Jackson – to promise to take photos of JJ as he grew. Starting before he was born.

The next photo was of JJ in Ellie’s arms, the two of them sitting in the window at the top of the house, the sunset colouring them in pinks and oranges. He had been just days old when it had been taken, and Ellie was looking at him like he was her whole world. Her little Potato.

Then there was Dina’s favourite photo of all. Their family – the three of them. JJ had just learned to sit up by himself, but Dina had held him up anyway. Behind her, Ellie stood with her arm around Dina’s waist and her chin on Dina’s shoulder as she smiled shyly at the camera. Dina wanted JJ to remember what that family looked like, even if his Mom never came back. She’d make sure her never blamed her for it. That he knew that it hadn’t been Ellie’s fault. That she would have been with them if she could. That his Mom had been broken and his Mama hadn’t realised just how much.

The last photo was one that Dina kept hidden away, just for her. As far as she knew, Ellie didn’t even know that it existed. Hell, even Dina had forgotten about it and she had been the one to take it. Only when she had been packing up the farmhouse did it fall out from between the pages of her favourite book. It was from before Seattle. Taken the night before their first kiss. They had sat up talking all night and Dina had crashed in Ellie’s bed. Ever chivalrous, Ellie had taken the couch. When Dina had woken up early, she had taken the instant camera that she had stolen from Jesse and took a single, candid photo of Ellie sleeping and serene. Dina had known it had been wrong to take it without Ellie’s permission, but she couldn’t help it. She had loved Ellie for as long as she could remember. Even if she hadn’t realised it at first. Now, that photo was more precious to her than any other. It was Ellie before Joel’s death. Before Seattle. Dina would give anything to go back to that day and keep Ellie safe from everything that would follow. She imagined that they would still be on the farm. That JJ, whose first word had been Mama, might have stuttered out Mom instead.

That photo, she kept hidden from any visitors, just bringing it out at night when no one else could see. She cradled it and cried. Grieving without knowing.

The worst part, worse even than Ellie’s absence and how it was her fault, was that everyone was treating her and her sadness like she was Jesse’s grieving widow.

People had been so quick to tell her that Ellie leaving had been for the best. That Ellie hadn’t been right for her. That Ellie wasn’t safe to have around a child. That everyone knew that her heart had really been with Jesse and the whole thing with Ellie was just some heartbroken mistake.

She’d shouted and screamed at all of them until near everyone had started to give her as wide a berth as they had given Ellie once they’d returned from Seattle.

She wondered if it was just that Ellie was a woman, or if it was just that Ellie was Ellie. Unapologetic and principled. If Jesse had been in Ellie’s shoes, would they have said the same thing? If he had left to avenge his mom, would everyone be looking at her like she had made a lucky escape when he left?

But of course, Jesse had been the Jackson hero. The king of patrols. Everyone loved him and Dina had too, sure, but not the way she loved Ellie.

Jesse had been her best friend. He had been the safe guy, sweet guy. It had been so easy to kiss him and share his bed. He had never pressured her. Never expected anything she hadn’t wanted to give. And she had wanted too, she couldn’t deny that. But with Jesse it had been so easy that she should have known that it couldn’t – shouldn’t – last. She had just been going through the motions. Doing what everyone expected of her.

The last thing they expected had been Ellie.

Ellie…

With Ellie, it had been fireworks. Overwhelming and exciting. Every inch of her skin had tingled when Ellie had been close. Every touch had left fire in its wake. Even when she had been 9 months pregnant and cranky as hell, Ellie had given her goose bumps.

Yet still everyone seemed to think that they knew better. That Jesse had been the one for her and that with JJ they would have been complete. She had started to resent him for it, and that wasn’t right. It wasn’t his fault. He would have been the first in line to defend Ellie. Hell, he probably would have followed her to find Abby.

But he had died and they had survived. Them and…

Tommy.

Her blood boiled just thinking about him. He had tried to come by after she first moved back, but she’d pulled her shotgun on him and promised to shoot out his other knee if he ever came near her or JJ again. Ellie hadn’t been well, she’d known that. Maybe she hadn’t known it well enough, but she would have figured it out. She could have helped her, with time. That was all they had needed. Time to make Ellie realise that she was worthy and to help her work through the things that stalked her beautiful mind. With time, Ellie could have gotten better. Tommy had taken that chance away from her and Dina would never forgive him for it.

Not now, not ever.

## Ellie

To say that Ellie’s life had been shitty was an understatement as long the trek from one end of the country to the other. And she should know. She’d done it enough times.

Despite it all, despite every shitty, fucked up thing, there were only four that had changed her life forever. Four times that everything inside cracked and broken. And each and every one of those times was her own damn fault.

The first time that everything had gone to shit had been Riley. How could it not be? She’d always been aware of the brutality of the world. At least vaguely, in some kind of abstract way. But she’d been a kid. And kids had a way of thinking that they are immortal. That nothing could hurt them because they were a kid and had their whole lives in front of them. So, despite the deaths, the infected and the constant back and forth between the soldiers and the Fireflies, it had felt more like a movie acted out before her eyes than it had an ever present danger. Back then, she’d never been afraid that the world out there could impact on her. Not personally. She had never felt the kind of fear that she’d felt so often since. Never felt that rush of… well, everything that came with kissing someone who made her heart skip a beat. Never felt the all consuming fear of her life about to end, nor the guilt of surviving when it didn’t.

Ellie’s life had fractured in two that day. The Ellie that had worn Halloween masks, giggled over a joke book and kissed her best friend had died in that abandoned mall. The Ellie that had emerged had been… someone else. Someone new. Someone just a little (a lot) broken. Going into that mall was the start of it all. The start of the Fireflies, of Joel, of Salt Lake City and even Abby. Everything after that felt like destiny. The bad kind.

The second break happened in Salt Lake City, the second time around. She’d known that something wasn’t right, but nothing could have prepared her for the world-sized enormity of what she’d found out. That every single death form that day to this… Every Mom who’d had to shoot her bitten kid in the head before turning the gun on herself; every woman who’d watched the person she’d loved be ripped apart by a clicker; every girl who’d seen her Dad run towards a horde just tp give her time to escape… Every single one of them the whole world over could have been prevented if Joel had just let her fucking die. It had been all she’d been good for. The only thing in her unworthy life that had meant anything. And even now, years later, the pain from that had only gotten worse. She’d thought maybe she could forgive him, but herself? Not a chance.

That guilt had broken her again and again. So much so that she couldn’t even begin to count the pieces.

And then there had been Joel’s death – major break number three. It would have broken her anyway, no matter how she had lost him, but the way it’d happened… The way she’d seen it… Watched helplessly as Abby had destroyed him.

Not killed.

Destroyed.

Killed was too weak a word for what she had done. It was the kind of death that obliterated the part of him that had made him Joel. Abby had caved in his skull and smashed in his face. She’d made him unrecognisable. Had splashed his blood and brains all over Ellie’s screaming face.

It had been the kind of death that Ellie had only seen dealt to the infected. At least back then. Before Seattle…

If it hadn’t been for her, Joel would still be alive. That unborn baby in the aquarium… The dog she’d shot a few miles outside the farmhouse, so sure it’d been a stalker. Every single life she’d so single-mindedly taken in Seattle. And Jesse… If she’d just died on that operating table at the hands of a Firefly whose name she’d never even know… None of this would have happened.

JJ would have had a dad.

It seemed selfish to think that in the light of it all, Seattle seemed minor in her list of traumas. Maybe it just meant that she hadn’t started to process that yet. Process what she’d done. What she’d failed to do. What she’d left behind on that beach in Santa Barbra. But that’s of course that was where number four came in, so tied up with Seattle that maybe it was all one big thing after all.

The fourth, of course, was losing Dina and JJ. Despite all Ellie’s cracks, every break in her psyche, she’d held it together at least in part (or, looking back, maybe not) until she’d walked through that farmhouse door. (Or, if she was honest with herself, until the moment she’d left through it). Dina was gone. Her little Potato gone. And besides the feeling deep in her gut that told her that she’d know – that she’d have felt it – if something had happened to either one of them, she’d never felt more afraid seeing that empty house. Dina leaving her was one thing, but Dina gone… Dina and JJ being hurt or… or...

She’d left them alone and vulnerable, and that… that was the most unforgivable thing she had ever done. Leaving that incredible woman and the boy who held her whole heart to go it alone in this world. The world that had broken her in so many ways, and which she’d broken back. She’d left them to face it alone. She should have been there to protect JJ. To watch over Dina whilst she slept, just like she had ever since Seattle.

So, she’d stumbled out of that abandoned farmhouse and began the walk to Jackson.

She’d check to make sure that they were safe, then she’d leave them to live their lives and go find the Fireflies and beg them to do they should have been allowed to do in back when she’d been 14 and hadn’t racked up a body count the size of a small town. If she was walking to her death, she had to know that Dina and JJ would live. That what she was about to do would make the world a safer place for JJ to grow up in. It was all she could give him now.

That was how she ended up on the outskirts of Jackson, exhausted and collapsed against a fallen trunk just feet from the treeline.

The patrol that found her slumped there in the dirt recognised her immediately and tried to bring her inside. But that hadn’t been her plan. A place like Jackson wasn’t meant for her. She was tainted so far beyond redemption that the people of that place would probably vomit with disgust as soon as they saw her. And so they should. She’d only wanted to find a familiar face and quietly ask if Dina and JJ were okay. Or maybe to climb one of the overlooking hills and see if she could catch a glimpse of them.

So when a guy she vaguely remembered being called Jackson – oh, the irony – tried to pick her up and bring her inside, she’d thrashed about like a caught fish until he’d dropped her back onto the dirt where she belonged.

“Please… Don’t…” She’d choked, mouth filling with dust and grass. “Can’t go in… Just… Just need to know they’re okay… Please…”

She hated that she couldn’t even talk properly. It had been days since she’d had something proper to drink. The only river she’d passed was crawling with infected. She should have stocked up in the farmhouse, but she hadn’t stopped for anything. She’d just needed to leave. And now she’d ended up fucking delirious.

“Fuck, she’s out of it,” someone who was probably Jackson said. She didn’t know. She didn’t seem to be able to see anymore. “Go get Tommy. And someone big enough that she can’t wriggle free. She needs to see a medic.”

_No!_

She’d thought it. Tried to scream it. But all that came out was a wail. A wail and then… nothing.

## Dina

Dina had been back in Jackson for five months when Maria woke her up in the middle of the night, banging and screaming at her front door.

“Dina! Dina, they’ve found her. They’ve found Ellie!”

She had dashed out of her lonely double bed and down the stairs so fast she tumbled down the last few, slipping on one of JJ’s toys. She froze for a moment, waiting for a cry, but when it didn’t come, she got unsteadily to her feet and pulled open the door, panting, trembling, and bleeding from a split lip.

“Is… Is she…”

“She’s alive,” Maria said quickly. “But she’s in a bad way. Unconscious and skinny as all hell. The boys on the patrol said she was delirious and didn’t want to come into Jackson. Said that she wanted to know if ‘they’ were okay. I’m guessing she meant you and the kid.”

Dina nodded, biting her bloodied lip. The taste of the blood grounded her. Reminded her that this was real, not some dream she’d had a million times since Ellie left. But the truth was, she didn’t know how to process it. In all the dreams she’d had, the only think of Ellie anyone had brought back was a body. She’d all but accepted that Ellie was dead and now here she was, back in Jackson and alive.

“Where – err – where is she?”

“The infirmary. The boys tried to get Tommy but when he was too goddamned drunk to answer his door, they came for me.”

Anger flared in her belly that not once in that equation had they thought to come and find her. But that didn’t matter. Not right now. All that mattered was Ellie.

“Can you watch JJ?”

“Of course.”

“Don’t-”

“Don’t let Tommy see him, I know.”

Dina nodded, still in shock, and made to leave.

“Dina, you’re not dressed.”

She looked down at herself in her sleep shorts and tank.

“Doesn’t matter.”

The barefooted jog to the infirmary seemed a lot longer than the stroll there the week before when she’d dropped by to fill up her first aid kit. Longer even than the trek to Seattle. Though nowhere near long as the way back.

When she barrelled through through the doors, everyone inside jumped.

“Dina! What are you doing here?”

She recognised a guy who had been a kid not five minutes ago, pestering Jesse to let him join the patrol. Jackson something. His Mom was a real patriot.

“What do you mean, what am I doing here? You have my fucking wife. Maria had to come and get me because none of you boys bothered.”

Not entirely accurate but she’d said it before thinking. And, evidently, she’d said it loud. The ‘boys’ who had been out on the patrol flinched at her words and she knew that she would be the talk of the town. Again.

_Another mouthy dyke._

So be it. She’d wear it with pride.

“Dina.” The voice was calm and warm, and Dina turned to see Molly, one of the older medics standing in the doorway to the treatment room. “Come on, she’s through here.”

Dina followed on numb feet. She wanted to turn and flee. Partly because Maria had made it sound like Ellie was in pretty bad shape. More so because she still didn’t know if she could forgive her. Or herself.

“I don’t want you to be shocked when you see her. She’s had it rough. She’s skinny and covered in wounds that have gone bad. And there’s a bite on her wrist.”

Dina stopped, eyes widening at the implication. She knew that Ellie was couldn’t get infected but no one else could know that. No one could know that she was immune.

Molly mistook her fear for fear that Ellie would turn. Thankfully.

“Don’t worry. It must be a human bite because it’s at least a month old and she’s definitely not infected.”

Bullet dodged. For now.

“That’s… err… that’s a relief.”

They stopped at a curtain. Dina could see a shadow on a bed through the thin white cloth. It looked tiny. More like a child than a woman.

“Is she… Is she going to be okay?”

“Physically, I hope so. But she hasn’t regained consciousness yet. The wound in her abdomen is the worst, but we have some antibiotics. Not a lot, but she’s Jackson girl. She’ll have everything we have if that’s what she needs. If she responds to them, then there’s a good chance she’ll make it.”

There was an implicit statement there that Dina heard loud and clear. Some of the town might not approve of Ellie, but Molly at least would give her the best care she could.

“Thank you.”

“I’ll, err… I’ll leave you two alone. I’ve got some paperwork to do.”

Nothing could prepare Dina for the sight that greeted her on the other side of that curtain. To say that Ellie was had lost weight was an almost laughable understatement. She looked half-starved. So thin in the face that she looked a decade older. But it was Ellie alright. Battered and covered in new scars, but definitely Ellie.

And then she saw it. Or rather, saw what wasn’t there. Two fingers gone. Sheared off at the first knuckle.

“Fuck, babe,” she said under her breath. “What the hell did they do to you?”

It was worse than she had expected. This woman looked nothing like the Ellie she knew. It was like every single one of the cracks that she’d known had been beneath the surface had forced their way out. Dina was afraid that if she touched her, she’d shatter. So instead so watched her chest rise and fall, terrified that at any moment it might stop.

“Sorry to interrupt, but she needs more fluids.”

Dina turned to see Molly’s apprentice in the doorway, her too-young frame backlight with dawn light.

How long had she been here?

“Yeah – uh – of course. Do you need me to leave?”

The girl – Alice, maybe? – shook her head.

“Just need to hang up another bag of fluids. It’ll only take a minute. And besides, you’re her wife, right? You don’t need to leave.”

Dina didn’t want to correct her. She just nodded and watched as the girl went about her work. She wasn’t. Not officially. But she sure as hell felt like it.

She shook her head, banishing the thought. One step at a time. Get Ellie well, then they could talk.

“Someone raid another hospital recently? Looks like you’re all stocked up,” she said, attempting small talk to stop her mind racing.

“Jackson and the boys. They’re pretty brave. Whole town practically gave them a parade.”

Of course they did.

“Which one?”

“The one about two hours east, I think. St Barnabas. Know it?”

Dina rolled her eyes, but luckily the girl didn’t see.

“Ellie and I went through it a couple of years back. Cleared out all but one floor before we ran out of bullets. No one gave us a parade.”

She sounded bitter and she knew it, but with Ellie lying there broken and wasted away, she didn’t much care. It had been Ellie’s idea to go to the hospital. Elena Guillero’s labour had been threatening to start way too early and she’d needed steroids to help mature her baby’s lungs. That had been all Ellie needed to know to risk her own life. And of course Dina had followed her. She always had. She’d have followed her after Abby if it hadn’t been for JJ.

The baby had lived and not as single person had thanked them.

“She will wake up, you know. She just needs some time. Her body’s been through a lot.”

“You…” Dina trailed off, eyes focused on the shallow rise and fall of Ellie’s chest. She was trying not to judge, she really was, but this girl had never even left Jackson. By her age, both she and Ellie each had shot at least a dozen fucked up people and who knows how many infected. “You have no idea.”

“No, I don’t think I do.”

It took three whole days for Ellie to wake and Dina didn’t leave her side for a minute of it. At some point in the first day, JJ joined her. He was quiet at first, and Dina was terrified that he didn’t remember Ellie. But then he reached out his chubby little hands and cried out for his Mom, wriggling in Dina’s grasp until he pulled free and toddled over to pat Ellie’s scarred cheek. He must have recognised her from the photos and the stories Dina told him whilst he looked at them. Every day she’d tell him about his Mom and his Dad, not matter how much it hurt her.

Eventually though, he got bored when she didn’t wake up, so Dina had spent most of the last few days trying to keep him entertained but quiet enough so as not to disturb the other patients. Which was easier said than done with a toddler. But she wanted him there. He was too young to remember the state that Ellie was in, so she knew it wouldn’t stay with him. But for Ellie… seeing her son’s face when she woke might make all the difference. Or at least Dina hoped that it would.

As it turned out, JJ was out for the count when Ellie came around. He’d just finished nursing and had fallen asleep in Dina’s arms, full and content. His Mama – who hadn’t slept for more than an hour in a row since Maria had woken her – was well on her way to dropping off herself when a struggling breath came from the bed and she looked up to see Ellie’s eyes half-lidded and fixed on her son.

Those eyes… Dull but unquestionably alive.

“This… this isn’t real,” Ellie rasped, trying and failing to move further away from Dina and her son. Like she was afraid.

It broke Dina’s heart. What had happened that she no longer believed her own eyes?

“Here. Have something to drink.”

She clutched JJ to her chest and brought the bottle of water from beside the bed up to Ellie’s lips to. Ellie reluctantly took a drink, never taking her eyes off JJ. She just looked confused.

“But you… You said.”

“I know what I said. I was pissed. And wrong, as little as I like admitting it. You needed help, I should have realised that.”

If Ellie had been in a state to roll her eyes, Dina was pretty sure that she would have.

“How…”

“How long have you been here?”

Ellie nodded.

“Three days. Some kids picked you up outside the gates.”

“Fucking Jackson.”

Dina smiled slightly. “Yeah, fucking Jackson. My new hero, just don’t let him know that.”

“Potato…”

Dina shifted him in her arms so that Ellie could see his sleeping face.

“He’s fine. He’s missed his Mom something fierce, but he’s fine.”

Ellie’s eyes screwed shut tight and her body tensed like she was in pain.”

“Fuck.”

Dina looked around for Molly, panicked.

“I should go get a doctor.”

“No!”

And that, it seemed, was all Ellie had in her. Her body sagged back against the mattress and her eyes closed. Though she looked a little less troubled as she slipped back into sleep. Or maybe that was just Dina’s imagination.

## Ellie

She was in a world of grey.

Grey skies above and grey waves below. 

Never ending.

Boundless.

No shore. Just… grey.

And though her whole body screamed with pain – overwhelming and absolute; salt water on open wounds – she felt like a shell whose occupier had long since rotted away, left inert and drifting in their absence.

A void.

Pointless.

Alone.

And then came the wave. It crashed into her, throwing her beneath the water and filling her lungs with ice. But still she didn’t move. Didn’t struggle. Just let it happen.

“Ellie!”

She closed her eyes against the sting of salt and thrashed against the waves, trying shake that voice out of her head.

The voice she might never hear again.

The voice she didn’t deserve to hear.

(The voice, the eyes, the smile, the touch.)

“Ellie!”

She felt someone grab her arms and feared for a moment that Abby had come back to hold her under. But when her eyes snaped open, it wasn’t Abby’s gaze that met hers.

It was Dina’s.

Which was worse.

So, so much worse.

“No! No!”

“Ellie! Ellie, please stop, it’s me.”

Ellie stilled, frozen at the desperation in Dina’s voice. Dina who had been the last person she had wanted to see, precisely because she was the _only_ person that mattered. Her and JJ.

Now Ellie was trapped. Unable to run away. Unable to look away. Unable to do anything but stare up at the woman she loved – the woman she had betrayed – by as that woman held her down to stop her from thrashing, looking more scared than Ellie had ever seen her. Out of sight, a woman and a man argued, their voices rising as the woman told the guy to calm the fuck down. And over it all were the wails. Terrified, screaming wails.

She panicked even more when she realised who it was.

“JJ!”

“He’s fine, I promise,” Dina said, her voice full of quick and urgent. “I just need you to stop screaming for me, okay?”

Ellie froze. She hadn’t even realised that she had been screaming. Hadn’t had control enough of her body to notice that her throat was screamed red raw. Hadn’t been able to hear that her own screams had joined with JJ’s in a symphony of panic and fear.

“It’s okay,” Dina said softly, her thumbs brushing gently over Ellie’s sunburned skin. “It’s just the meds. Molly said they’d make you feel spaced. Just try to breathe, okay?”

Ellie nodded silently. She didn’t have the heart to tell Dina that she’d felt like this for months. Or close enough at least.

“Okay,” Dina said, nodding to herself the way she did when she was trying to work something out. She squeezed Ellie’s arms, then loosened the pressure a bit. “I’m going to let go of you so that I can go and grab JJ. You okay with that?”

Ellie nodded, assuming that this meant that Dina was leaving and taken JJ with her.

“Great. Okay. Here I go.”

The pressure on Ellie’s upper arms disappeared, and suddenly she felt exposed. Vulnerable. Foolish.

She watched, unable to sit up, as Dina crossed the room to where JJ was sobbing in the corner, a new soft toy clutched in his tiny hands. It was pink and dangly, and definitely not the one that Ellie had made for him.

When Dina picked him up, he looked huge in her arms.

“It’s okay, baby. Mama’s here. Mom just had a bad dream, she didn’t mean to scare you. Everything is going to be okay.”

JJ listened and looked quickly over to Ellie before focusing back on Dina.

As if he knew who his Mom was.

As if that was still her.

As if hearing the word wasn’t an arrow to her chest.

Ellie shook her head and focused on the ceiling. She couldn’t think about this. She just needed to wait for Dina to leave and then she could figure out how to get out of her. Except that the fan turning in slow, ineffectual circles was probably giving off more heat in electricity than it was cooling down the room. It seemed far too much like a metaphor for her life that she started counting the scuffs on the ceiling’s paintwork instead. But then she spotted a bullet hole and the panic started all over again.

“Hey now, be gentle bud. You don’t want to hurt your Mom.”

Before Ellie could open her eyes, a tiny hand pat gently at her cheek. She flinched, then froze, using every flicker of self-control that she had not to turn her face away.

“That’s right, good boy,” Dina praised, her voice soft and warm, and grating on Ellie’s unworthy nerves.

She opened her eyes to see Potato looking back at her, all chubby cheeks and wide, dark eyes. Dina was holding him aloft above her, letting him pat at her nose and cheeks but making sure he didn’t put any weight on her.

“Hey – uh – hey, handsome,” Ellie rasped out. “Damn, you’ve gotten big.”

Dina smiled softly and winked.

“He sure has.”

Ellie smiled slightly, using all her effort to lift up one arm enough to ruffle his fluffy baby hair. JJ giggled and squirmed, trying to worm his way out of his Mama’s grip.

Focusing on him was good. The grey at the edges of Ellie’s vision started to fade away. The sounds around them lost a bit of their echo, and a little warmth started to seep into the empty space inside of her.

But she didn’t deserve it. She couldn’t let herself be drawn in.

“I’m sorry to interrupt,” a voice said from just out of sight, saving Ellie from having to make that choice. “But I’d like to take another look at our patient now she’s awake.”

Dina stepped back, taking JJ with her and handing him to someone out of sight. Molly Turner stepped into the space Dina had occupied. She was smiling and her eyes were kind. She had patched Ellie up so many times over the years.

“Well now, why don’t we start by getting you propped up a bit, huh?”

Ellie’s limbs felt heavy as between them Molly and Dina helped to prop her up on a pile of pillows. Her skin burned where Dina touched it, heat prickling up the back of her neck and mixing with the stomach-churning embarrassment that came from needing to be helped like this. She felt like a child, like a burden.

Her mood ebbing deeper and deeper into self-hatred, Ellie sat pliant and silent as Molly busied around her, taking her temperature, checking her pupils and measuring her blood pressure and pulse. She winced a little as Molly lifted her shirt and prodded at the more painful of her wounds. It wasn’t that she couldn’t handle the pain, it was the look of shock on Dina’s face when she saw how skinny Ellie had gotten that hurt. She knew that she was in bad shape. It hadn’t escaped her notice that she was bony as anything and that even her muscles had started to waste away, but it hadn’t been a priority. And it wasn’t like she could force herself to sleep or eat. Or like she cared either way.

But seeing it hurt Dina… It just proved all the more that she had to leave.

“Fuck, Ellie,” Dina murmured.

“Yeah, I know,” Ellie bit, turning away and glaring at the opposite wall.

“Well it’s good news at least from my end,” Molly interrupted, trying to sound cheery. “Your fever is gone and the swelling around your wounds has gone down, so the antibiotics have been doing their job. The fluids you’ve been having have helped with your blood pressure, but your heart rate is still a little high. I’m going to reduce your pain meds to see if that helps. Think you can handle that?”

Ellie huffed out in relief. She was sick of these meds.

“Yeah, obviously.”

“The meds I’ve had you on are sedatives, but it’s the best we had. You’ll be able to move better and your mind should be clearer once we reduce the dose.”

“Joy,” Ellie muttered.

“Ellie!” Dina admonished.

“Sorry, sorry. Yeah, uh, that’d be great Doc, thanks.”

Molly looked between them, then nodded.

“I’ll go and see if Robin needs anything.”

Silence stretched between them once Molly was gone. Looking straight ahead, Ellie could almost convince herself into thinking that Dina had already left.

“Ellie, we need to talk.”

Ellie’s attention snapped to Dina’s face, her eyes wide with panic.

_Oh no._

She knew it was coming. She’d almost been relying on it. But she’d expected Dina to just leave, not to torture her even more by telling her why. She knew why. Hell, she’d leave herself if she could.

“You said something when you were sleeping.”

Panic rose in her again. Shit, fuck, what had she said?

Dina’s voice dropped to a whisper, “Something about finding the Fireflies. Please, Ellie, tell me you’re not still looking for revenge.”

“No! No… I promise,” Ellie hissed, trying to see over to Dina’s shoulder to make sure that no one could hear them.

“Then what? What could you possibly want with them?”

“I… Fuck… You weren’t supposed to know…”

“Oh really, and what exactly was I not supposed to know?”

“You were gone…”

“Yeah, no shit. You left us alone.”

Ellie winced.

“Fuck, I know… I just… I only came here to make sure that you and JJ are okay. I didn’t expect…”

“You didn’t expect what?”

“I didn’t expect to actually see you.”

“Well you have. So explain, Williams.”

“I…” Ellie huffed, trying to find a way to say it that wouldn’t make Dina hit the roof. She wasn’t sure there was one. “I was going to see if they could make their stupid vaccine.”

From the moment she said it, the air in the room changed. Electricity prickled up the back of Ellie’s neck and not the good kind. The ‘oh shit, she’s pissed now’ kind.

“No. Fucking. Way.” Dina bit, her voice still low but laced with danger. “You have got to be fucking kidding me.”

“I… What else was I supposed to do?”

It sounded pitiful even to her own ears but it was all the reasoning she had.

“I don’t know,” Dina scoffed, “live maybe?”

“Oh yeah, sarcasm’s really helpful,” Ellie muttered.

“Oh, Fuck you, Ellie.”

“No, fuck you,” Ellie huffed and crossed her arms, looking away. “I don’t want to argue with you.”

“Well tough shit, because I wanna argue with you,” Dina hissed, though with a little less venom than Ellie was expecting.

She sounded… upset?

“Fucking fine then,” Ellie muttered, focusing dead ahead. “Have at it.”

“Do you have any idea what it’s been like since you left? We had to leave our home. I had to try to console your son because he couldn’t understand why the most important person in his world disappeared whilst he was sleeping. Every stupid fucking busybody in this godforsaken town kept telling me how sorry they were about Jesse. I had to stand there again and again whilst they harped on and on about hard it must be for me to be a single mom without _him_. How it was okay to grieve for _him_. And every single time I wanted to yell at them that it wasn’t him I was grieving for, _it was you!_ ”

Shivers ran up Ellie’s spine and her eyes stung. She turned back to see tears streaking down Dina’s face.

“I’m… I’m sorry,” Ellie warbled.

She’d thought that she was shattered already but this…

“So, don’t you dare talk about leaving again,” Dina said darkly. “I’m sorry that I didn’t understand how badly you were hurting, but I do now and I promise we can find a way to work through it. Together. I don’t care how hard it is or how long it takes. You’re my family, Ellie. You, me and JJ. I don’t know if it wasn’t clear for whatever reason, but I love you. Not in the teenage crush, I’ll get over it kind of way. I mean the forever kind, Ellie.”

“I love you too,” Ellie said like it was an apology. “But that’s not…”

“But that’s not what? How can you love us and still want to leave us again?”

“Because I’m fucked up!” Ellie hissed. “I have killed so many people. What I did in Seattle… I don’t deserve for you to love me.”

“Did you keep anything from me about Seattle?” Dina asked, her voice full of fear.

“What? No!” Ellie exclaimed, then blanched when she realised for the first time that she’d strayed above their unspoken agreement to have this argument at a whisper. “No.”

Dina untensed.

“Then I think I get to be the one to make that choice, don’t you? So what if you finished what we started in Seattle? I don’t care, Ellie. I care about you and JJ and that’s it.”

Ellie blushed. “I didn’t… I didn’t finish it.”

“Oh…” Dina said. There was silence for a long moment and then, “When you came back I thought… Did you not find her?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I found her. Eventually. You really want to hear about this?”

“No secrets. We promised,” Dina reminded her.

They had. And they had told each other everything. Even the shitty stuff. Everything, apparently, except for how much they were both struggling.

“There was this fucked up malitia group. Way more fucked up than any we’ve ever seen. They had Abby and that kid that shot you.”

“What do you mean, fucked up?” Dina interrupted. “They’re all fucked up.”

“Yeah well these guys were worse. They had infected chained up and I think they were turning people intentionally or using them as people slaves or… I don’t know. Whatever it was, it was bad. They had game traps up all over the suburbs trying to catch people. Caught me too, but I got free and found out where their base was. When I eventually got to the place they were holding their prisoners, though, Abby wasn’t even there.”

Ellie shuddered just thinking about it. She didn’t even want to know what they’d used the clickers for.

“There were a tonne of other people there, though, and they managed to get out when I broke in. This massive fight broke out between them and the militia, but one of the prisoners herd I was looking for Abby and told me that she’d tried to escape and was down by the beach. It was so fucked up, Dina. There were all these people tied to stakes – most of them gone already – and Abby and the kid were there, both pretty much dead already.”

She looked down at her bitten off fingers.

“I cut her down and we fought. I could have done it. I could have ended it. I had her head below the water, but I just couldn’t…”

Dina nodded, eyes down, processing.

“She did that.”

“Yeah.”

“They likely to come after us?”

“No, no.”

“Then it’s over?”

“Yeah, it’s over.”

Ellie thought that would be it, but clearly Dina wasn’t done.

“Then tell me again why you’re leaving.”

Ellie rolled her eyes and flopped back against the pillows.

“I told you, I’m fucked up!”

“Yeah, well, me too,” Dina huffed. “Seattle was a shit show, but it doesn’t get to rule the rest of our lives, Ellie.”

“Yeah, I know that. But that’s easier said than done,” Ellie said hopelessly.

“So we have to work at it. Guess what? Everyone in this fucked up world has done some shit. You really think that what you’ve done is worse than Joel or – hell – anyone else we take in her in in Jackson. Next to most people outside of this town, Ellie, what you’ve done is nothing. Those WLFs you killed? They were torturing people. Not just once or twice. Not just to get people to give up information. They did it for fun. I heard them talking about it on the radio. They were bragging. Had rankings and competed on who was best. And those Scars? They were hunting people. I’m not saying that taking a life is right, but those people that you killed in Seattle… The people that _we_ killed… they weren’t good people. You’ve seen what hunters do to the families they come across, we both have. They’re are monsters in this world, but you’re not one of them.”

“You really think other people are going to see it that way?” Ellie asked, wanting more than anything for Dina to say yes but knowing that she couldn’t.

“You know what? Fuck them. They have no idea what it’s like out there. Even those who go on patrols. They kill a few infected. Maybe a hunter every now and again. But the infected aren’t the monsters in this world. It’s the people like the WLF and, fuck it, the Fireflies too, who think that they’re ideology is more important than other people’s lives. It’s the people who kill for sport. Those who kill over a few supplies. We have never once turned someone away from Jackson. The WLF? They shoot on sight. So I don’t care what other people think. You’re no angel, Ellie, but neither am I. We’re products of this fucked up world and what the people in it have done to us – to you.”

“Fuck, Dina…”

She was making it all sound so reasonable. Like it was all okay. To Ellie it felt anything but.

“If you go to find the Fireflies, then all of this… everything we’ve been through will be for nothing. The way you get to fix this isn’t by sacrificing yourself for something that’s never going to work. It’s by living your life and bringing up your son. It’s by honouring the sacrifices that Joel made for you and making a life for yourself. For _us_.”

“I don’t know how to do that.”

“And you think that I do? Ellie… all I’m asking is that you try.”

For the first time since the conversation began, Ellie met Dina’s eyes.

“Okay.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ellie comes home, has a little breakdown, then takes some steps forwards.

## Dina

Returning to the house knowing that Ellie would be coming home was, frankly, terrifying.

It meant facing up to the reality that she hadn’t been living, but existing here the past few months. Feeling like an intruder in this house that wasn’t hers had been her normal. Always a little on edge. An unwanted guest who had walked into someone else’s sanctuary and set up house. She wondered if Joel could see her here and what he thought of it. She wasn’t faithless. She believed in something beyond, but what that was… Well the ambiguity of Judaism had never really helped her with that. Especially in a world as cold and cruel as this one.

Either way, as the months had gone on she had begun to feel more like a caretaker of this place that was still Joel’s. Keeping the house warm and clean for if – _when_ – Ellie returned. As if the harder she worked, the better the house looked, the more likely it would be that Ellie would come home to her.

She had cleaned and oiled every last bit of wood. Every book had been removed from its shelf and dusted at least once a week. Paintings had been gently washed and rehung. Broken wires replaced and a Ellie’s old PlayStation fixed and set by the TV. The cracked leather couch had been cleaned, oiled and kept away from JJ’s sticky hands. Every pot in the kitchen had been scrubbed until it gleamed. Each jar of dried foods emptied and replaced with fresh contents, even if she didn’t like whatever it was. Joel had and maybe Ellie would, and that’s all that mattered. She scrubbed the floors, cleaned the windows, tended to the garden. Over and over again she had done these things. A kind of prayer for what they had lost and what she hoped above hope to have again.

The only thing she’d changed had been the bedding. Sleeping on Joel’s mattress in his sheets had felt sacrilegious. So she’d bartered for a new mattress and brought her own sheets from the farmhouse. Sheets that she and Ellie had slept in together. Sheets that she’d slept under alone since the night that Ellie left. Despite a couple of way off base offers.

Now she had to consider how Ellie would fit into all of this. How would she feel not just stepping back into Joel’s house, but living in it? Would she too feel like his ghost watched over these wide, airy rooms?

“Knock, knock, delivery.”

Dina jumped at the sound of someone in the entryway. She must have left the door unlocked. Not something she did very often. Most people in Jackson didn’t bother with bolts or locks, but Dina had seen what people could do. Even those who seemed as nice and normal as could be. Hell, she’d been those people. Which all meant that she wasn’t naïve enough to think that Jackson was safe. Nowhere was safe.

She hadn’t slept soundly since Ellie had left her bed. Months walking around in that exhaustion had made her sloppy, it seemed. She’d have to do better than that once Ellie came home. She’d do anything and everything to keep her safe.

But for now…

“Maria? That you?”

“Yeah, it’s me. Come on down, I have something for you.”

Taking one last look at the side of the bed that had lain empty ever since she’d moved in, Dina dropped the fresh pillowcase on the bed and jogged downstairs, this time avoiding JJ’s toys.

“Hey,” she greeted, exhaling softly in relief at the sight of a familiar, reassuring face. “Thanks for this. I know they don’t exactly grow on trees. Well, I guess they kind of do… But you know what I mean.”

Maria smiled and gestured for someone outside to come on in.

“It’s not a problem. Johnny Robertson’s daughter Eloise has been learning the craft from her father and I’d already asked her to put one together for JJ as a kind of practice for her. A proper one he could grow up in and take on with him. When she heard that Ellie was back, she worked solid to make sure it was finished, just in case she’d need it.”

Dina’s chest clenched. For months she’d heard nothing but negativity for Ellie in this damn place. Not a single word in her favour. Not even when she’d bumped into Cat. But maybe there were a few still who didn’t think that she was some kind of untamed, dangerous thing.

“Give her my thanks, will you?”

“You can do it yourself. But she was happy to help. It was Ellie and Joel who found her and her father wandering about a days ride out from Jackson a few years back. If it hadn’t been for them, they’d have trekked right by this place.”

Dina nodded, remembering. There were so many people in this place that Ellie had helped. Why loving Dina and trying to avenge Joel seemed worse than being a hunter to some people, she would never know. She’d given up hope that anyone out there might think differently.

“She’s fourteen now and damn handy with an axe,” Maria chuckled, rolling her eyes a little. “She’ll have muscles the size of her father’s by the time she turns sixteen. I think she may have a bit of a crush on your Ellie.”

Dina smiled. Oh, Seth would be thrilled. An axe wielding dyke this time.

She was just thinking that maybe Jackson’s future was a little brighter than she had imagined when Jackson Tailor and his buddies slunk into the house carrying the newly made bed. He met her eyes briefly, then quickly looked away.

She had to bite her lip not to laugh.

“Now, what do you boys have to say for yourselves?” Maria asked, ever the matriarch.

A chorus of ‘Sorry, mam’s filled the hall as one sheepish boy and then another gave their apology. Dina tried not to flinch at being called ‘mam’.

Dina shrugged. They needed toughening up if her raising her voice a little once had been enough to scare them like this. No one in this place had been easy on her, Ellie and Jesse and it hadn’t done them any harm. Though she guessed that was probably open to interpretation.

“See boys, she ain’t that scary. As long as you don’t go giving her something to be scary about,” Maria said half joking, half warning.

Turning to Dina, she asked, “Where do you want it?”

“The workshop. First room you’ll come to on the stairs.”

The boys stood fixed in place, just staring at her.

“Well go on then. You heard her, get on with it.”

At Maria’s words, Jackson and his friends scuttled up the stairs with the bed on their backs so fast that they looked like some kind of clumsy wooden beetle.

“So,” Maria asked when they were out of earshot, “how is she?”

Dina exhaled. “She’s fine.”

“Yeah, just like I told everyone that Tommy was fine, I’m sure.”

“What do you want me to say? That physically she’s a mess? Mentally even worse?”

“If it’s the truth. Sounds like a lot to take on with you already having JJ to take care of.”

Dina bristled.

“She’s my responsibility,” she said shortly.

“There are others who’d disagree.”

“Yeah well, those others can fuck themselves. This is _her_ house, _her_ family. This is where she belongs.”

“And if she disagrees?”

Damn, Maria could be infuriating. Always trying to get you to see other people’s perspectives in the name of keeping the peace. Always so goddamn in control. Despite all of the emotions churning up like a storm inside of her, Dina was trying to be the same.

“She won’t. Not when she has her head back.”

It came out fiercer than she’d intended, but when it came to Ellie, she didn’t know how to be anyway else.

“You know,” Maria said with a teasing smile, “you remind me a lot of myself when I was your age. Hot headed and idealistic as hell.”

Dina snorted and tried not to notice how much mud Maria and the boys had tracked into her clean house. When had she gotten so old that that actually mattered to her?

“Sucked to be you, then.”

“Yeah… Yeah, it did. Still does right now. But I built this place from the ground up, despite the efforts of the world outside these walls. And, sometimes, the world within.”

“I want my family back, that’s all I care about, Maria.”

“And Jackson?”

Another snort.

“Can go fuck themselves.”

“Err…”

Both women turned to see Jackson and the boys standing half-way down the stairs.

“We’re talking about the goddamn town,” Maria said with more exasperation than Dina had heard since she and Ellie had been off to Seattle. “Now go on, get. You’re due back out on group patrol in an hour and there are breakfasts waiting for you.”

Jackson took the lead and boys ran off after him, practically scampering out the house like a rabbit that had just heard a gunshot.

“I know you have a lot on your plate right now with Ellie coming back, but at some point you have to decide whether you’re ever going to get this happy family of yours in Jackson.”

Dina’s attention snapped back to Maria, her hackles rising.

“What’s what supposed to mean?”

“Not what you think,” Maria said quickly, her hands up defensively. “Jackson has a lot of great things going for it, but it’s not perfect. There’s a lot of things about the people here that don’t fit with the ideal I had going into it, and I don’t mean you and Ellie. There are some opinions and ideals held by members of this town which I don’t agree with. They don’t belong in the future I want to build here.”

Dina shrugged.

“And?”

“And I won’t be running this place forever. I just want you to think on what your role here is gonna be going forwards, that’s all.”

“Right now all I can think about is Ellie. And JJ.”

Maria smiled anyway and tilted her head. Whatever grand plan she had, Dina had few illusions of influencing it. Sure, she’d need to find something to do once JJ was old enough to go to school, but that was a long time off.

“Well, I best get back out there before those idiots hurt themselves,” Maria said, eyes glinting, before tipping her head and leaving Dina alone.

Maria’s words were still clattering around in her head half an hour later as she sat back by Ellie’s bed, JJ babbling in her lap as he smooshed his dinosaur toy into his horse toy in a highly inaccurate reconstruction of prehistoric times. Whatever it was that Maria wanted her to do, it was so far outside of what she could handle right now. Ellie was coming home. That was all that mattered.

A change in Ellie’s breathing pulled her attention away from her thoughts and towards the bed. She knew that change in tempo. The quickening breaths that signalled that Ellie was about to wake. She had lain beside her and listened for it a hundred times, not believing how lucky she was to have Ellie Williams in her bed.

The moment Ellie’s eyes opened, they homed in on her little potato. It made Dina melt (and get just the tiniest bit jealous).

JJ reached out with his dinosaur, waving the best he could with his hands full.

“Hey, Bud,” Ellie muttered with a sleepy smile, stretching and groaning.

There was more colour in her cheeks this morning and when she pulled herself up into a sitting position, she looked stronger and brighter eyed too.

“Damn, Molly wasn’t kidding about those painkillers knocking you out, huh?” Dina said, smiling. Her palms were itching to reach out for her. She wasn’t stupid enough to think that Ellie was fine now but this… this was progress.

“Yeah, I – uh – I guess so,” Ellie said sheepishly. “More than I thought. Between that and the dehydration. And the hunger. Guess not taking care of yourself takes its toll, huh?”

“Well, duh. Hey, you wanna hold him for a bit?” Dina asked, jiggling JJ on her lap.

For a moment, something like a smile lit up Ellie’s eyes.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. He’s getting heavy though, so watch out.”

Ellie eagerly held out her arms to take her wiggly, excited son. To Dina’s relief, JJ went to her without a fuss. In fact, he seemed captivated with Ellie. Logically she knew that he couldn’t remember her. Not really. Not beyond the photos and stories, and realistically she had no idea how much of those he could take in. But to see him gazing up at Ellie enthralled… Well, she knew how he felt.

“So, do I get a ‘hey’ too or do you just have eyes for boys now?” Dina quipped.

Ellie turned and glared at her. It made Dina’s whole body sing with joy.

“Ha ha.”

“Is that a yes?”

Ellie rolled her eyes. “No, it’s not a yes. And you know that.”

“I don’t know… those pain meds can do some pretty weird things to people.”

“Not _that_ weird.”

Dina snorted. “Yeah, well you still haven’t said ‘good morning’ to me, what’s a girl to think?”

This time, Ellie softened a little.

“Good morning. And... Thank you for persuading me to stay.”

Dina snorted again.

“Like your drugged up ass could have gotten passed me even if I hadn’t managed to persuade you.”

Ellie blinked. “You were here all night?”

“What, you think I don’t know you, Ellie Williams? No way was I leaving you here alone to sneak off and get yourself killed. The longest I’ve left for since you got here was the hour this morning when I ran back to the house and picked up JJ.”

On the mention of his name, Ellie gazed down at the boy in her arms, a soft smile just threatening the corners of her mouth. She held him up under his arms, balancing him on her legs and watching him intently. He watched her right back. His brown eyes locked on her grey-green.

“That’s… You didn’t have to do that. Stay, I mean,” she said after a moment.

“Yeah, well we’ll have to differ there,” Dina said seriously. She needed Ellie to realise that she had meant what she said. She wouldn’t give up on her. Not ever.

“I guess what I’m trying to say is thank you,” Ellie mumbled, as awkward sounding as that fourteen year old girl who had literally tripped at her feet the first time that they had met. “Thanks for not, you know, just telling me to fuck off.”

“Ellie, you don’t have to thank me,” Dina said, leaning closer into Ellie’s space. She wanted her to know that she meant this. Meant it seriously and without limits. “It’s not a chore to be here. Is it scary? Yeah. You looked like shit when they brought you in. Still pretty much do. But I’m only scared because I love you. I don’t want you to feel pressure by that its just… I don’t know. Its just a fact. That shouldn’t be news to you. And if it is, then clearly I didn’t do a good enough job of showing you that.”

Ellie nodded, her cheeks flushing as she avoided Dina’s gaze.

“So you – uh – you mentioned a house?”

Dina paused. It didn’t feel like the right time to tell Ellie but she didn’t really have a choice.

“Yeah, yeah. That’s one of the things I need to talk to you about.”

“Sounds ominous.”

“Kinda.”

JJ sat down heavily on Ellie’s knees, but Dina didn’t think that was why she had flinched.

“If… If you don’t want me in your house, that’s… I can find somewhere else to stay.”

Guilt washed over Dina that Ellie might think that, even for a moment. She knew that this thing, this voice in Ellie’s head that told her that she wasn’t good enough, that she didn’t deserve to be loved… this thing wasn’t Dina’s fault, but she still felt guilty as hell for not realising just how loud that voice had become.

“No! God, no, Ellie. I… Its just that the house that Maria gave me when I came back to Jackson was Joel’s house.”

Ellie froze, the air in the room suddenly going cold around them.

“Ellie…”

## Ellie

“Ellie…”

Dina’s hand on her arm made her jump.

“Sorry, I… Fuck, Dina.”

She was trying not to hyperventilate. Trying not to fall back into that place of utter darkness. Not that she had ever really left it. But the memories came tumbling to the fore of her mind, all mixed up and blood drenched. Joel’s face as he smiled at her on the porch, asking about Dina. Joel’s face as she’d shouted and screamed at him in Salt Lake City. Joel’s face bloodied and… She could feel her heart rate starting to peak and she knew she was seconds away from a panic attack that she had no means of stopping.

“Not for months you haven’t.”

It took Ellie a moment to work out what Dina meant. Then the darkness ebbed away at the terribleness and the sheer inappropriateness of the joke. As her vision cleared, she saw the woman she loved grinning sheepishly at her.

For the first time in months she felt. When she’d seen and held JJ it had _almost_ … She had almost allowed herself to feel that love and joy come rushing back, but the part of her brain that liked to punish her quickly reminded her that she didn’t deserve him. That her claim over him had been tenuous to begin with and now was entirely intangible. That he had grown and learned without her there by his side and that made her a terrible excuse for a parent. No that she even was one. Not really.

But hearing Dina make that stupid joke… It was like someone had pressed shuffle on her memories and all of her and Dina’s greatest hits were playing in glorious 3D. Their first time, a little high and a lot anxious, but still having the time of her life. The next in Dina’s bed in Jackson, raw and full of grief that she had sobbed into Dina’s shoulder. Then the road to Seattle, holed up in an abandoned church as the rain poured onto and through the rafters, soaking them as they cried catharsis into each other’s mouths. Then onto months of snatched happy moments at the farmhouse, islands in the despair. Dina smirking beneath her as Ellie pinned her hands above her head. A sweaty night in the barn just before JJ was born. Pressing Dina up against the kitchen counter giggling whilst JJ napped in the next room. She hadn’t thought about Abby or Joel or any of that fucked up stuff when Dina’s skin had been pressed against hers, hot and wanting. Remembering even just a fraction of their times together in the blink of an eye had short circuited her brain before it had the chance to spiral into the self-hatred and overwhelming endlessness of grief. And she was pretty sure that it had been exactly what Dina had intended with her stupid joke.

“I… I…,” Ellie stuttered, her blush running all the way down her neck.

Dina smirked.

Ellie loved her so fucking much.

“Don’t worry,” Dina teased. “I’m not going to pounce on you the moment we walk through the door. Not that I don’t want to, but I’ll try to restrain myself.”

“Yeah, right,” Ellie scoffed, gesturing to herself.

“Oh please,” Dina said, rolling her eyes extra hard. “We both know I have low standards.”

Ellie snorted and rolled her eyes right back at her.

More serious this time, Dina said, “I get that it’s not going as easy as falling right back into being us and I’m not expecting it to be. But that doesn’t mean that I don’t wish that it was.”

“Yeah…” Ellie sighed, pulling JJ close and kissing the top of his head. If she closed her eyes, she could almost imagine that they were back at the farm and that she hadn’t fucked everything up. “Me too.”

“I know, babe.”

Ellie looked at Dina then and took in the longing and sadness in those beautiful dark eyes. Maybe her mind might not let her truly accept it just yet but, just for a moment, she believed that Dina meant it when she said that she still loved her. She looked away again and nodded, her head screaming at her that she didn’t deserve that love, even if Dina did feel it.

“I can sleep on the couch.”

“If that’s what you want,” Dina said softly, like she had been expecting it. “But there’s a bed that was meant to be for JJ when he’s older. It’s in the workshop. If you’re not sleeping with me, I’d prefer it if you stayed there. I don’t like the idea of you sleeping on the couch. Or downstairs alone. I know that Jackson is safe as it can be but…”

“Yeah, I know. The workshop sounds… good.”

It didn’t. Not at all. Sleeping surrounded by Joel’s carvings and guitars she could no longer play sounded like a recipe for insomnia and spiralling. But it would be close enough to Dina that Ellie could feel at peace, yet not so close as it would freak her out with feelings of unworthiness. At least, not an overwhelming amount. Not all the time at least.

“Great,” Dina said, getting to her feet and seeming to relax a little. “You think that you can carry JJ? I can grab your stuff and your meds.”

“I’m being discharged?”

“You really think that Molly is going to tell me no?”

Ellie had never really known anyone tell Dina no. It was part of the reason that she, Dina and Jesse had gotten into so much trouble over the years.

“Guess not.”

She honestly wasn’t sure if she’d make it to the house with JJ on her hip, but she had a feeling that Dina was trying to make some sort of point by having her carry him. Ellie had known her long enough not to argue.

And that was it, end of conversation. Dina picked up her stuff and marched out of the treatment room, leaving Ellie no choice but to scrabble to put on her shoes with JJ balanced in one arm and follow on after her. They stopped briefly at Molly’s desk, but Ellie didn’t really listen as Molly and Dina talked. JJ was playing with strands of her dry, sun-bleached hair and she realised just how little her body felt like her own anymore.

Then they were moving again. Dina in the lead and Ellie and JJ following behind. If anyone was staring or talking about her, she didn’t notice. She focused on Dina’s footsteps, scanning the ground for any potential dangers that might make her trip and put JJ in danger. Before she knew it, they were at the steps to the house and there were flowers everywhere. Not the kind that people had left when Joel had… No, these were growing. Not wild or placed. Cultivated. Purples and pinks and blues. Delicate little daisy-looking things and others as big as roses. Some that Ellie had never seen before in Jackson.

“Did you…” Ellie asked, stopping and staring at the beauty before her.

Dina turned and blushed, Ellie’s backpack slung over her shoulder.

“I wanted JJ to see something nice when we come home. So that he remembered this was his house and that its happy here. Stupid I know but…”

Ellie’s heart clenched and for once not in a bad way.

“That’s…”

Fuck, she was going to cry.

“That’s really nice. You’re a really great mom.” She shook her head and lifted JJ higher in her arms to hide her face. “Can we go inside?”

“Yeah, yeah of course,” Dina said quickly, running up the steps and pulling out some keys.

“You lock it?” Ellie asked as she made her way up beside her, bouncing JJ in a way that she knew was meant more to settle herself than him. “Smart.”

Dina’s shoulders untensed and Ellie got the distinct impression that people had been giving her shit about it.

“You ready for this?” Dina asked.

“No. But lets do it anyway.”

The smile that Dina gave her at that almost made Ellie swoon.

The rest of the day was spent in a kind of awkward trio. Like some kind of fucked up mockery of what they had been at the farmhouse. Ellie had been too shell-shocked to say anything beyond a few words here or there and Dina hadn’t pushed her except when it came to eating.

There had been no need for a tour – Ellie knew where everything was – but she still felt like a stranger in the house. She was trying not to notice that apart from JJ’s things, nothing in the house suggested that Joel was gone. She’d sneaked into the bedroom when she had been upstairs to the bathroom and had seen that it wasn’t Dina’s clothes which filled the walk-in closet, but Joel’s still. There was barely a hint of Dina’s presence in the whole house. Like she had been living like a ghost, leaving no mark but the crumpled bedsheets that once used to be theirs.

Now Dina was wrapped in those sheets again, wrapped in the warmth of what their life had and could have been. Yet here Ellie was, lying awake in a bed two doors away, surrounded by the side of Joel that her stubbornness and inability to forgive had robbed her of ever really knowing.

Eventually, after hours of restlessly tangling herself in her new non-farmhouse bedsheets, she got up, fished out her torch from her bag and walked the few steps to the workbench. The mostly finished cowboy statue was still there, but beside it lay bits of broken electronics that certainly weren’t Joel’s. Wires and tiny engines, circuit boards and chips, and other things that Ellie couldn’t name at all. This was all Dina.

There was a CD player all put together with parts of different colours, a pair of earphones trailing from the jack. Next to that was a race car toy with its chassis off and a mess of wires underneath that Dina was clearly in the middle of mending. It probably went with the brightly coloured steering wheel sat beside it. Ellie smiled a little when she saw it. She imagined JJ playing with it, running around the house on his flat little feet as it zoomed ahead of him, living the kind of normal life that Ellie wanted for him more than anything. Part of her still thought that the only way for him to have even a chance of having that life would be for her to find the Fireflies. He was so innocent. So unbroken by the world that would surely one day break him because it broke everyone. It had broken her again and again, and if she could save him from that then surely that would be the one good thing that she could do with her otherwise pointless life.

Seeing him and Dina had broken the dam inside of her. Before coming back to Jackson, she had felt nothing but emptiness. That didn’t mean that thoughts of every self-hating kind hadn’t been swirling around in her head every moment of every day, but they had been just that. Thoughts. They hadn’t hurt because they didn’t have to. She wasn’t going to live long, so what did any of it matter. She wasn’t going to see Dina and JJ again so what did it matter that she had lost them, that she had hurt them. None of it mattered because every step was one step closer to her purpose.

A purpose that she had now promised that she would never fulfil.

Without it, she didn’t know how to be anymore.

When she had come to Jackson, this was the last thing that she could have imagined. Standing in Joel’s workshop, JJ’s toy in her hand and Dina’s nightshirt hanging too big off her bony frame. But here she was, awake with her thoughts running a mile a minute and unable to shake the feeling that none of this could be real. That this was all some kind of fever dream and she was back out in the Californian desert.

“Only one way to find out,” she muttered to herself as she stuck in the earphones. If she hadn’t heard the song before, then this was real, no question. But if she had…

## Dina

Dina lay awake, terrified that she would wake in the morning to find Ellie gone. She lay there in the darkness, almost holding her breath, desperately listening for any tiny noise. Ready to spring from bed and plead with Ellie to stay.

Again.

She wasn’t stupid enough to think that getting Ellie home was the hard part. It felt like she had the body – and even that wasn’t quite right – but the mind… Ellie was somewhere dark and far away and Dina wasn’t sure if she’d ever make it home. But that didn’t mean that she would ever give up trying.

When Jesse had died and Ellie had left, people hadn’t stopped telling her how young she was. That she had plenty of time to find someone new. That she had her whole life ahead of her and that there were plenty of fish in the Jackson sea.

But you don’t follow someone the way she had followed Ellie to Seattle, doing the things that she had done, without _knowing_.

She had known it from the moment that she had kissed her in that fairy-lit church. She had been high on the atmosphere and, admittedly, the alcohol and a little bit of pot. It had felt amazing to finally be free of her relationship with Jesse. Not because she didn’t care about him, but because she’d just been going through the motions. Doing what was expected of her because it was easy. Ending it had freed them both. And freedom made her bold. When she had seen Ellie there, leaning against the bar and looking hot as all hell, she hadn’t had any reason to hold back. She had felt Ellie’s presence the moment she’d entered. Had felt her gaze on her as she had danced. It had spurred her on. Making her put on a show just to feel those ever-intense eyes on her. 

When she had pulled her out onto the dance floor, for once she hadn’t felt afraid. The intensity of her feelings for Ellie had always scared her. Not because Ellie was a girl or because of any other bullshit reason like that. It was because feeling so much in this world was dangerous. She had seen that over and over. Seen the shades of broken people and swore to herself that she would never let that happen to her. Life was too short to waste it broken hearted.

But in the wake of leaving Jesse, she realised something else too. Life was too short not to live it. It was too short to settle for okay when she and Ellie could be something incredible.

So she had put all of that fear aside and kissed her, not knowing if Ellie even felt the same. And that had been it. Fate sealed. Destiny decided.

Nothing could follow that kiss.

A 6? She’d never lied so hard in her life.

But if that had been the moment that she had known – or at least hoped – that Ellie was it for her, the moment that Ellie had left her in that theatre to face unknowable, overwhelming odds had made her sure. She had listened to every transmission on every frequency, following Ellie’s trail as she heard reports of shots fired and bodies found. She heard every detail of what Ellie had left behind and not once did she feel anything but relief and… pride. Relief that she was alive and pride that no one could stop her. And if that made her or Ellie a monster in people’s eyes, she really didn’t care.

When she and Ellie had returned to Jackson with Tommy still half dead and nothing of Jesse but his gun, the people of Jackson had taken one look at each of them and made snap judgements that hadn’t changed since. They had seen Tommy broken physically and mentally and seen a victim. He’d lost his brother, tried to avenge him and nearly lost his life. Maria had slapped him, then hugged him, and he’d been the big hero. Even if they had failed.

In Dina they had seen a widow. Visibly pregnant by then and dog-tired. They had mistaken Jesse’s gun sticking out of the back of her jeans for sentimentality when really it had been all practicality. She had tried to mod her own with a silencer from a semi-automatic and had ended up damaging the barrel beyond the point that Ellie could repair without more tools than they had with them. Jesse’s gun was just a gun. Something to keep them safe. It hadn’t even been the one he’d left Jackson with and she certainly wasn’t his widow.

But Ellie… For some reason they had needed someone to blame for Jesse not coming home and Ellie had fit that bill. They had come through the gates on a horse they had taken off a couple of hunters. Ellie sitting tall in front and Dina clinging tight behind her, her belly fitting snugly in the curve of Ellie’s back. She’d had her head on Ellie’s shoulder, because why not? She was tired and overwhelmed at being back and Ellie was Ellie. Ellie who held her close and soft at night and protected her with the ferocity of lion by day. And the people of Jackson seemed to see that in a heartbeat and take it like Ellie had stolen Jesse’s place.

Soon Tommy’s drunken retellings of their time in Seattle painted Ellie as the monster everyone wanted her to be, whether Tommy meant it or not. And that had been it.

Their judgement had made Ellie’s already tormented mind even worse. Worse even than Dina had realised. She had thought that they were getting somewhere. And maybe they were.

They had spent the last two months before JJ was born on the farm. Just the two of them. Ellie’s rough edges had seemed to even out with the hard work of getting everything ready for a child. She had been excited, if a little scared. They had lain just talking in tall grass in the midday sun on a blanket that Dina’s mother had wrapped her in as a child, then tumbled sweat-covered on crisp once-white sheets by night. She had watched Ellie’s features soften and calm as she ran her fingertips over her rounded belly. Listening as Ellie told the baby of dinosaurs in space and how excited they were to meet him or her. She had seen the love in Ellie’s eyes and known that it had been their chance. Those two months were the best of her life.

Then JJ had been born and they had loved him every bit as much as they had known that they would. Ellie had doted on her little potato. But she had feared for him too. The dreams of Joel’s death had started coming more and more often. Like being a parent had brought it all back. She hadn’t realised just how bad it had gotten until the night Ellie left.

When she looked at her nightstand the clock read 3.20am. A whole hour later than when she’d last looked.

_We're talking away_

_I don't know what_

_I'm to say I'll say it anyway_

_Today's another day to find you_

_Shying away_

_I'll be coming for your love, okay?_

At first she thought she was still half-asleep and hearing things. She couldn’t have been asleep for more than 40 minutes. But it wasn’t a dream. It was soft and quiet but definitely there. The upbeat tune to the song she knew far better from Ellie’s lips. From Ellie’s fingers playing on the strings of a guitar. And then – over it all – the sobbing.

She was at the door to the workshop before she even realised that she had moved, but paused when she got there, hands shaking before the doorknob. She was so afraid that Ellie would push her away, but it didn’t matter. This wasn’t about her and her fears. Not right now anyway.

Inside, she found Ellie crumpled to the ground, head between her knees as the sounds of her sobbing, wailing cries carried over the soft, happy tempo of the music. Wires led up from her ears to the half-fixed CD player on the benchtop. It’s broken aux jack playing music inside and outside of the earphones.

Trembling still, Dina crept closer, so afraid that she would startle the broken girl on the floor. She crouched slow and gentle before her, reaching out to take one earbud from her ear, half afraid that Ellie would lash out.

But all Ellie did was flinch a little as her head snapped up, her cheeks red and dripping in tears. Her eyes widened as she saw that it was Dina before her and she tried to scrabble backwards, her back hitting the bench she was already right up against.

“Hey, hey, it’s okay,” Dina said quickly, pushing forwards after her and reaching out to touch Ellie’s shaking hands with her own. “I just heard the music, wanted to make sure that you were okay.”

At her words, Ellie just sobbed even more.

Dina reached up to quickly shut off the music so that it didn’t wake JJ, then crawled to sit cross-legged between Ellie’s splayed knees and reached for her. Partly to try to soothe Ellie’s tears and partly because she needed so badly to touch her. To know that she was real.

At first Ellie stayed leaning away from her, her pupils blown. Dina started gently, running her hands up and down Ellie’s thighs, the muscles there so much smaller than she remembered. To her surprise, Ellie didn’t try to squirm away this time, but instead collapsed into her, her head falling into Dina’s lap as she shook with the sobs that made her body jolt and shake. Dina held her, her own eyes stinging, then overflowing.

They sat there as Dina told her over and over that she was loved and this was her family, whispering it into the crown of Ellie’s head like it could soak through and find purchase there. Sat there until Dina’s legs went numb and the first blush of light filtered in through the curtained windows.

“Ellie,” Dina whispered softly, afraid to wake Ellie after she had eventually cried herself to sleep. “Babe, JJ’ll wake up soon. Come back to bed with me? Just for a little while?”

Ellie nodded lightly, then sat up. Her bloodshot eyes met Dina’s briefly, then darted away.

Dina sighed, then stood and reached down to offer Ellie her hand.

“Come on, Williams. There’s a soft mattress calling my name and I’m not leaving you here on the floor.”

Another nod and Ellie let herself be led, lamb-like. She shuffled behind as Dina crept back into the bedroom, pausing in the doorway to check that JJ was still asleep in his crib before tiptoeing to the bed. She pulled back the covers and patted the space, then walked around the other side of the bed and got in.

She watched as Ellie weighed it up in her mind. Wishing more than anything that she could hear the thoughts running through her messy mind. If only Ellie would tell her, would say it all out loud, then she knew that she could make it okay.

“Please, babe.”

Whatever fight Ellie might have had was long since cried out of her. She crawled into bed, but lay so far away that she might fall out at any moment. Dina reached out for her, pulling her closer and wrapping her arms around Ellie’s too-small waist.

“Is this okay?”

Ellie stiffened but nodded.

Dina knew it was probably a step way too far, but she after a night like that she couldn’t stop herself from leaning up to press a kiss to Ellie’s frown-wrinkled forehead.

“So, no more sleeping in the workshop, huh?” Dina joked quietly. “My fault, admittedly.”

Ellie even laughed a little then.

“Not your best idea.”

“But you’re not ready for this either.”

It wasn’t a question. They both knew that she wasn’t.

“So we’ll move the bed in here. Move stuff around a little. Put JJ’s crib between us. You’ll have your own space – kinda – but you’ll be here with us. Sound good?”

A flicker of a smile and Ellie nodded.

“And whenever you want, this space beside me will be waiting for you.”

Before Ellie could respond beyond another tiny nod, Dina’s ears picked up the tell-tale sniffles of JJ waking hungry. Ellie’s head snapped towards the crib the moment and Dina knew she had heard him just the same as she had. Proof that those mother’s instincts of hers hadn’t lessened one bit.

Sighing, Dina winked at Ellie, gave her waist a squeeze and swung back out of bed to make her way over to the crib.

“Hey buddy, you’re up early,” she said in her soft-singsongy JJ voice, smiling down at her bleary-eyed son.

“Mamamamama,” he mumbled, reaching up with his chubby little hands and yawning.

“Come here, buddy,” Dina cooed as she lifted him up into her arms. “You sleep well?”

He curled into her and clenched her sleepshirt in his hands. She could tell by the way that he was nuzzling into her that he was tired still and had only woken because he was hungry. Not that that was a surprise. It was 6am and he had only woken once in the night for a feed, which was unusual. Almost like he had known that Ellie had needed her more.

“Come on then little one, lets get that belly of yours filled and then we can see what the day has planned for us, huh?”

When she turned back to the bed, Ellie was already by the door.

“I’ll – err – I’ll leave you to it.”

“What? Don’t be stupid. You’ve seen me feed him a million times. Come back here, will you?”

Dina purposely avoided looking at Ellie again as she settled back on the bed and slipped out of her sleepshirt, only looking back up at her and rolling her eyes at Ellie’s blush once JJ had latched on.

“You know, I’m pretty sure you’ve seen me topless way closer up than this before. As in, your lips right where JJ’s are right now.”

“Dina!”

She had to laugh. It was way too easy to make Ellie blush and doing it made it feel more like them again. Though back then Ellie was likely to pay her back by pinning her to the wall as soon as they were alone and making her beg for forgiveness in the best of ways. Which was kind of the point.

“You’re a tease, you know that?” Ellie huffed as she sat heavily back down on the bed and reached out to give JJ’s foot a little squeeze.

“Firstly, it’s not teasing if I always delivered which with you, I always did. Second, this here is normal non-embarrassing Mom stuff that you need to get out of your head about, okay?”

“Yeah, I know. Its just… It feels private.”

“Not from you it’s not.”

“Yeah?”

“You literally pulled him from my vagina. I’m pretty sure nothing is private after that.”

“I didn’t pull him! That might have hurt him.”

“Oh but me screaming in pain was fine.”

Another Ellie eye roll. God, it felt good to get back into this. Their back and forth.

“About as fine as a swarm of clickers. I might not have looked it, but I was shitting myself that there was something wrong.”

“Oh, it looked like it. I don’t think anyone else has ever looked so in pain watching someone else give birth before.”

“Oh fuck off.”

They grinned at each other, sat there knee to knee on the bed with JJ happily nursing between them.

“I’ve missed this,” Ellie said after a moment.

“So fucking much,” Dina agreed.

This… This was definitely a start.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dina and Ellie start to figure out what they're new normal might look like and have some important conversations.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the wait. Life happened and made it impossible for me to concentrate for a while. But don't worry, I won't be abandoning this.

## Ellie

It was the first morning of what was being billed as her new life and JJ was milk-sleepy and koala-clutching at her like he remembered who she was. Which was impossible, but for once her overtired brain just let her believe.

She was sat at the kitchen island on a chair that she didn’t remember Joel owning, and cradling JJ like he was some kind of baby-shaped shield from the swirling thoughts that usually dominated her waking hours and haunted her sleeping ones.

Ellie listened, entranced, as Dina told her about Jackson’s changing crops to the backdrop of JJ’s contented babbles. She told her about how more woodland around the back of the town had been torn down and planted with wheat and oats to feed Jackson’s ever-growing population. About their plans for crop rotation and how the strain of wheat that they were using was the same one that she and Ellie had been trying at the farm. None of this information was anything that Ellie cared about. Not even a little. But it was the listening that was the important part. Listening to Dina explain things in far too much detail kept away the silence that brought the thoughts. And they both knew it.

It was nice. Domestic. JJ on her lap and Dina at the stove. It reminded her of lazy afternoons on the farm, and just for a moment, she let herself believe. Let herself stare as Dina swayed slightly, back turned as she stirred the softly bubbling pot.

And then Dina looked over her shoulder and caught Ellie staring, and suddenly the guilt came flooding in as cold and brackish as seawater in her stomach.

“You know I don’t mind you staring at my ass, right?” Dina said with a teasing grin. 

Silence. Ellie’s actual brain was just… silence. She hadn’t even been staring at Dina’s ass. At least not specifically… but…

“I…”

Dina just laughed and ladled the milk-cooked oats into a bowl, then drizzled them with honey before placing them on the island and sliding the bowl across to Ellie. It bumped gently into JJ’s cushioned behind and he giggled, his chubby pink cheeks as bright red as hers were from embarrassment and… that other worthless feeling.

“Hey, Ellie, look at me for a minute, will you?”

Ellie looked up from where her gaze had been fixed on the bowl in front of her. Dina was watching her, a careful, serious expression on her face.

“There’s no line. No definition. Just us. You wanna stare? Then stare. You wanna kiss me? Then ask. Whatever you want, we talk about it. We don’t squat in our heads and let the guilt have sway where it doesn’t need to.”

Dina knew her far too well. So well that Ellie didn’t even have to nod her agreement before Dina smiled and nodded before turning back to fix her a bowl for herself.

The mixture that sat in front of Ellie was on the grey side of cream and looked so far from appetising that she just stared at it for a moment. It wasn’t until JJ realised what it was and made grabby hands gestures towards the bowl that she dared to try some for herself. If JJ could take it, then so could she. And boy was that the right decision. Thick and creamy and milky and sweet. It was, by far, the best thing that she had ever tasted. And not just because she hadn’t had cooked food in months. Though, okay, maybe that might have something to do with it. But still, from the way that JJ was desperately trying to get to the bowl, she had a feeling that it was his favourite too.

“He can have a few bites, but make sure that you cool them down first,” Dina said absentmindedly as she sprinkled sun-baked salt over her bowl before taking up her seat on the other side of the island.

Ellie was halfway to blowing on a spook half-full of oats when she realised that this would be the first time that she had ever fed JJ. Suddenly, the spoon and it’s contents felt sacred. Like a ceremony of such importance that this moment was monumental.

Dina had said that the oats had to be cool, so Ellie blew and blew over the steaming forkful, pausing every few moments to check for steam. When it eventually didn’t come, she rested the spoon underside on the top of her hand to test the temperature, then gently brought it down towards JJ’s mouth, which was opened wide, his head tipped up like a baby bird. As soon as it got within reach, he lurched for it, swallowing it whole and wiggling with glee. And just like that, warmth tingled through Ellie’s body, radiating out from where her little Potato’s ‘mmms’ of enjoyment made her heart swell with joy.

“He won’t touch it with salt in it, but with honey, he’s all over it,” Dina said, watching them with a soft smile. “I figured you’d be the same.”

“This salty? That would just be a waste,” Ellie said, her voice soft and reverential as JJ took another bite.

“Good to know. Child.”

Ellie snorted and blushed, secretly pleased that she and JJ had the same tastes and that Dina had predicted that they would. Dinosaurs and oats. She was going to keep a list and look at it when it all became too much. Maybe in the back of a new diary. A fresh start. Blank page.

“When you’re done with that, I have some bread but it’s a few days old now and only good for toast. I want you eating properly so there’s no point in saying that you’re full. I’ll have to make more later, so the damn monster better not be dead. I’m not trading for bread again. Marcie charges way too much.”

Ellie stared at Dina blankly, sure that she must be so tired that she was hallucinating. If… If you could hallucinate sounds. She was pretty sure that you could.

“A… monster?”

“It’s like the world’s worst pet. Its white and gloopy and you have to keep feeding it or it’ll die. It lives in the fridge and makes everything in there smell like the brewery.”

“I am so confused right now.”

Dina was clearly messing with her, being intentionally vague.

“It makes the bread rise.”

“You bake?” She looked down at the slightly stale bread on the table. “You made this?”

“Don’t be too impressed. It’s like my 100th attempt and 7th monster.”

“I still have no idea what that is.”

“Oh, you will. You’re its Mom now too.”

“I… okay?”

“You do remember that I baked at the farm, right? And knitted. And sewed. All the housewife shit.”

Yeah, that and modding their guns to make them fire faster and deadlier.

“Yeah, well, only because we were so far from Jackson. I didn’t actually think you enjoyed it.”

Dina shrugged. “Turns out I kinda like creating things.”

Ellie jiggled JJ on her knee. “Well this one came out pretty well, so I guess I shouldn’t be surprised.”

Dina’s answering smile was like a soft warm bed. One to collapse into and forget the world.

This was strange, the back and forth between them. The jokes. The banter. Strangest of all was how not strange it felt. She was still terrified. Afraid that she could never be the person that Dina needed her to be. Scared that she wasn’t fit to be Mom to JJ or worthy of Dina’s affections, if she even had any. But this part. The part where it was the two of them in the same rhythm that they had always had? That she could do.

That felt as easy as drowning.

After she’d finished her oats, Dina put toasted bread covered in stewed apples in front of her and looked at her expectedly. Ellie was pretty certain that this was the deal now. There would be food and she would be expected to eat all of it. Which may be a little more than her stomach could handle, but with Dina looking at her like that and JJ curled up like a hot water bottle in her lap, she found that eating wasn’t quite so hard as she remembered.

The rest of breakfast was quiet, at least from her end. Dina talked about Jackson life and what else had changed since Ellie had been away. She talked about how the policy on patrols had changed. All patrols were done by groups now. Five people at least. Which meant that patrols were longer and covered more ground. No one was to leave Jackson alone. Ellie knew it was because of what had happened to Joel, but that didn’t need to be said and Ellie, despite the jolt of grief she got at the news, knew that she had to hear it.

Soon though, Dina ran out of things to say and so they marched back up the stairs to move the beds before anything could get too awkward. Ellie stood there and waited as Dina stood hands on hips and surveyed the bedroom.

“Okay, so either we move you into the little entrance bit and you have more privacy. I mean, not really but,” she shrugged. “Or we move our bed over more towards the door and then put the single in behind it for you on the far side.”

_Our bed._

Ellie weighed it up, balancing what she wanted with what she thought that she could handle. And for once, they seemed to be aligned.

“I vote option two.”

Dina smiled. “Perfect. Stick JJ on the bed and we’ll start with that.”

It soon became clear that Ellie’s current physique wasn’t up to much furniture rearrangement and she was quickly delegated the all-important ‘stop JJ from hurting himself’ task whilst Dina went into full Wonder Woman mode. Ellie found her eyes wandering, and though she wasn’t ready to act on it yet, it was nice to feel that old prickle of desire warming her skin as she watched Dina flex and strain. Putting on a show. One that Ellie very much enjoyed.

Maybe a little too much. The excitement of the morning soon had her falling asleep in her spot on the floor and once the bed was safely in place, Dina tucked her up in it and played quietly with JJ on the floor beside as Ellie drifted off to sleep. For the first time in months, as sleep took her, Ellie’s mind was quiet.

By the time that Ellie woke again, the room was dim and the sun coming in through the window was orange, shading to red.

She groaned and rolled onto her back. Her whole body _ached_. Bright, sharp pain radiated from the small of her back up and out to every chipped, broken corner of her. It took her far longer than she would like to admit to persuade herself out of bed and clean herself up.

Fresh clothes were waiting for her in the bathroom. A red and black plaid shirt. A once-white tee. Black jeans. All hers, but all of them now way too big.

Ellie stood in front of the mirror and looked at herself properly for the first time in months. It was a cliché she’d read a million times, but she barely recognised herself. The woman in the mirror was old and sunburned and far, far skinnier than Ellie had ever been. Any definition of muscles she’d once had were gone. She’d cut her hair when JJ had been old enough to tug at it, but now it was knife-shorn and ragged. The ends were as dry as straw and the rest of it dull with neglect. She barely even looked human, never mind herself.

“I look like a fucking runner,” she grumbled at her expression.

But the clothes were a start at least. They made her feel enough like Ellie that she could face heading downstairs in the direction of what was by now the at least somewhat enticing scent of dinner.

The sight that greeted her in the kitchen was one that would stay with her for a lifetime. Dina was swaying and humming to a record that Ellie had never heard before as she moved about the kitchen. Behind her, Potato was stood up in his playpen, clutching the sides and wiggling his little butt and babbling to the music in the most adorable imitation of his mother.

“Damn, you two have some moves,” Ellie said in an attempt at being smooth. She even leaned against the doorway, trying to summon up a little of that feeling of potent confidence that being with Dina had given her once upon a time.

And when the woman in question turned, her eyes lighting up as she took in Ellie’s changed clothes and gentle smile, Ellie felt a tiny crack inside of her seal.

“Hey yourself,” Dina greeted, her eyes sparkling. “Looking good.”

Ellie blushed, embarrassed because she knew it wasn’t true.

“Well I’m looking better than when they carried me in here at least,” Ellie said with a humourless laugh. “You – err – You want me to give you a hand with that?”

“Oh please, you know I’m weak for a girl in plaid. But nope, I’m all done. You can go set the table though if you don’t mind?”

“Sure. I can do that.”

“All of us down one end, please!” Dina called after her.

JJ squealed and reached up for her as she passed his playpen, so she plucked him up and set him on her hip. Complete with spaceship noises, obviously.

“Come on then, little guy. Tonight’s mission is setting the table set for Mama’s delicious dinner.”

“Oh, it will be a mission, don’t worry,” Dina called after them, laughter lacing her voice.

She was right. JJ did not make things easy, but it sure was fun trying to put the cutlery and napkins down without him making a swipe for them. He had one hell of an aim with that little grabby hand of his. So much so that Ellie drew the line at letting him anywhere near the plates. It took her roughly three times as long as it would have if she’d tried to set the table by herself, but it was worth it. Having him giggle and wiggle in her arms as if this was the best game ever was… Like breathing for the first time in what felt like _years_.

It felt so easy being like this with him. Silly and cuddly. Whether he remembered her or not, there was no need for pretence or second-guessing herself. As much as she loved Dina, there felt like there was way more at stake there. She believed Dina when she said that she was still JJ’s Mom, and that carried a permanence with it, whether she and Dina worked out or not. But the thing between her and Dina… She wanted to be _them_ again so fucking badly. But she was also nowhere near ready for that sort of relationship. She couldn’t expect Dina to wait whilst she tried to figure out her shit when chances were, she’d never figure it out.

“Ellie.”

Dina’s voice came soft but insistent, breaking her out of her thought spiral.

“Sorry,” Ellie said, shaking her head. “Just… thoughts, you know.”

“Well, let's get those thoughts of yours on dinner because it is served.”

Ellie looked up to see Dina placing a plate at either side of the head of the table and one far mushier looking one in front of JJ’s highchair. Much closer now, the scents caught Ellie’s attention and she realised exactly what Dina had been cooking.

“Oh my god, you got steak?”

Steak was beyond rare in Jackson. They had a herd of cows but not enough for steak to be regular food item. Usually, they ate faster-growing animals like chicken. Endless amounts of chicken and turkey. Some bacon, but not in their house, they had decided. For tradition’s sake. And then there was deer and rabbit. But beef… beef and mutton were coveted. They slaughtered maybe two or three of their herd every year, and only then when they had stopped producing calves and milk. The sheep were even rarer. Even after they had stopped lambing, they still gave good wool. Even when cows were slaughtered, the meat was usually salted and used sparingly. She and Joel had splurged for steak for her birthday that first year in Jackson, and it had cost them fifteen records for one small piece. So this… a steak each… It must have cost Dina a fortune in trade.

“Well how else am I going to feed you up?” Dina said with a wink as she took JJ and put him into his highchair. She gave him a thick carved wooden spook-fork hybrid and placed the plate of tiny pieces of veggies and eggs in front of him. “Have at it, Buddy. Let’s see how much you can do for yourself, huh?”

JJ grinned and promptly reached for the egg with his non-spoon holding hand.

“Close enough,” Dina snorted.

“Dina…” Ellie breathed as she sat down. “This… this must have cost…”

“Nothing,” Dina cut in. “Maria brought it over whilst you were sleeping. Enough for a week for both of us. Apparently, you looked ‘too damn skinny to be of any use to anyone’ and I was not going to argue with that.”

Ellie’s cheeks heated and pleasant tingles swarmed her body. She knew from what Dina had said that Maria had come to see her several times since she had been brought back to Jackson but she’d never been awake to see her. It meant a lot to know that their leader at least seemed not to think that she was a total waste of space.

They spent most of the meal taking turns in making sure that JJ was eating and not making too much of a mess of himself. The pleasant feelings stayed and only multiplied each time she caught Dina’s eye and a genuine, almost shy smile passed between them. It felt both completely normal and utterly monumental to be sharing this quiet, perfect moment. The three of them sitting around eating dinner together in a way that JJ had still been too young for when she had left. It felt like she was living a moment stolen from another version of herself. One who had had the strength to stay.

But instead of feeling bad about that, she felt… Okay. Not good. She would never feel good about leaving, but right now she could look at Dina without being wracked with guilt for the first time since she’d first opened her eyes and seen Dina’s concerned face looking down at her.

And the distraction it seemed was enough to get her to actually eat. She had been so focused on shoving forkfuls into her mouth in between helping JJ that she only realised that she had cleaned her plate when she went for another bite only to find it empty. Without the guilt churning up her stomach right now, eating hadn’t turned her stomach..

When she looked up from her revelation, she saw Dina watching her with that gentle, half teasing smile of hers.

“Good, huh?”

“Would you be mad if I said that I paid more attention to JJ than the food.”

“Would I be mad if you said that you paid more attention to our son than my cooking? God, no. You have met me, right?”

Ellie snorted. Because of course despite all of this being grown-up and cooking dinner like every adult in every boring film that she had ever seen, Dina was still Dina. Dina who loved nothing more than to sneak out and have an adventure in the woods or lie, weed-soaked on the roof of some random person’s house so that they could look up at the stars and make up stupid names for the constellations that earlier generations probably learned about in school. Dina who, when they had first moved into the farm, had hidden in a dark corner of the barn 8 months pregnant and thrown a bucket of water all over Ellie when she had come in, sweating, then had laughed uncontrollably as Ellie caught her and wrapped her in a soaking embrace. Dina whose only stipulation over JJ’s birth was that Ellie got to hold him first. Dina who had a million different facets, but all of them focused not on the stupid things that other people cared about, but making moments and building the kind of connections that defined a life.

Dina who was the most incredible person that Ellie had ever met.

No wonder everyone loved her. Ellie had been powerless to resist.

“Earth to Ellie.”

Damn, she’d phased out again. Only this time it hadn’t been in despair. Which was at least a start.

“Sorry. Just, thinking.”

“Bad or good?”

“You.”

A flicker of fear was quickly replaced by a trademark Dina smile. “Good then I hope.”

So Dina had doubts too.

“Yeah, good thoughts. Memories.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Do you remember when we climbed up on top of Maria and Tommy’s roof?”

“As high as kites? Yeah, I remember. I remember you trying to make up stupid names for the stars when all I wanted to do was roll on top of you and kiss you senseless.”

Ellie’s eyes widened.

“Jesse and Cat were both right there beside us!”

“Yeah, which is why I managed to control myself. Just. Did think about shoving her off the roof though…”

“You’re full of shit.”

“She was high, it would have looked like an accident.”

They burst out laughing at the absurdity of it, JJ joining in a moment later. Ellie wasn’t sure what was funnier. That Dina had clearly thought about it, if only for a moment and never seriously. Or that Cat – as badass as she liked to believe that she was – would have stood literally no chance with Dina’s lightning-fast reflexes and clearly superior survival skills.

“They’d have kicked you out of Jackson,” Ellie said, deadpan.

“Yeah, well. It would have been worth it. You would have come with me anyway.”

“You sound sure about that.”

“I am.”

They were both grinning again, and JJ seemed beyond delighted with the whole exchange. He didn’t understand the words, but the levity he got.

“Moma! Moma!” he cheered happily, clapping his hands and looking between them with utter glee.

“Well I for one am glad you didn’t,” Ellie said, leaning over to ruffle JJ’s hair. “I wouldn’t be without my Potato for anything.”

“Anything?”

The implication sat heavy over Ellie’s skin.

“Anything.”

After dinner, Ellie played with JJ on the floor by the couch whilst Dina washed up. Ellie had tried to insist on helping, but Dina had always been able to shut her down with a look and now was no different.

JJ was still being quiet and seemed happy enough playing with his dinosaur toy whilst he sat in the loop made by Ellie’s crossed legs on the rug. He had always been soft and sensible for a baby, and his serenity was like a balm for Ellie’s nerves. Even more so when he leant back into her and looked up to grin and offer her the dinosaur.

“Oh, err, sure,” she mumbled awkwardly, taking the dinosaur and wiggling it around. “Grrr. Roar. Grr.”

The noises were terrible and she knew it, but JJ clapped happily and reached for the toy once more, immediately imitating her movements and sounds.

“Damn he picks up everything now,” she muttered as she ruffled his hair. “Gonna have to be careful.”

“Oh fuck that,” Dina said with a grin as she walked into the room, rubbing her hands dry on her jeans. “If our kid grows up telling any kid who gives him a hard time to go fuck themselves then I for one will be proud.”

Ellie chuckled. “I’m not sure that the other parents will see it that way.”

“I’m not sure that the other parents will expect anything else from the kid of a couple of loud-mouthed… well, you remember.”

“Yeah, how could I forget.”

Dina sat down heavily on the floor opposite her, eyes intent as she watched Ellie avoid her gaze. That particular word would be one of few that they would avoid.

“Hey, there’s… err… There’s something we should talk about – about that night – if you’re up to it. It involves Joel and I promise it isn’t bad,” Dina said gently.

It would be so easy to just say no and burry her thoughts back in the brightly coloured plastic of JJ’s toys and the soft, soapy scent of his hair. But that was how she’d ended up in such a mess at the farmhouse. Refusing to talk about these things and holding them inside until they ate away at everything else.

“Okay.”

“Okay,” Dina said with a nod and a smile. A proud one. “Joel came to see me after you and he had your talk that night.”

Ellie froze.

“He… Why didn’t you tell me?”

“The next day I didn’t say anything because it was weird. And after that… Everything happened so fast. I didn’t want to upset you.”

Ellie wanted to ask why now, but they had said no secrets, so she guessed that was why. Even if it hurt. Rip off the band-aid. That had always been what Joel had said.

“What he say?”

Dina smiled wistfully, like it was a good memory despite everything that came afterwards. “He gave me the standard ‘what are your intentions towards my daughter’ line of questioning and the ‘treat my daughter right’ lecture. Then he patted me on the back and told me to look out for you.”

“He… he called me his daughter?” Ellie asked tremulously.

Dina blanched a little. “Well, not exactly but also kind of? He said that as far as he was concerned he was the closest thing to a father that you had and that it was his job to make sure that I didn’t just go hurting you by running back to Jesse. Which, for the record, I was never going to do.”

Ellie sighed and nodded, trying to take it all in. She knew what she and Joel were to each other, but it had always been unspoken. Neither of them was very good with their feelings and it’s not like they’d been on the best of terms for the last couple of years.

But to hear that he had talked to Dina about this… She wanted to talk about Joel and what he and Dina had discussed, she really did. But she wasn’t ready for any discussion where Joel was at the centre of it. Not yet.

Instead, she went for something else that had been on her mind so much since she’d left Santa Barbra.

“Why did you kiss me that night?”

Dina smiled confusedly and shook her head, clearly not expecting the question.

“Well, I think you know by now that I may have had a crush for a while,” Dina said almost, but not quite, shyly.

“How long are we talking?”

“Don’t make me say it.”

“No, seriously, how long.”

Now Dina really was blushing.

“I don’t know… Immediately.”

“Seriously?”

“Yeah, what can I say. I have horrible taste but at least it’s consistent.”

Ellie’s heart fluttered.

“No, but seriously,” Dina continued. “I’d had feelings for you for a long time. At first, I didn’t understand them, because it’s not like we had any role models for that… Then Cat came along and it was all so clear. But it was too late, the bitch.”

“Oh, here we go.”

“What? She was not right for you.”

It was the same argument that they had had over and over when they were just friends, but the first time that they were rehashing it since they had become something more. Which opened a new line of questioning.

“And you weren’t just jealous?”

“Well duh, those things don’t have to be mutually exclusive. She was just… Okay so maybe I was super jealous.”

More fluttering. It really shouldn’t affect her so much that Dina had been so jealous of Cat, but it felt like proof that Dina had wanted her, even when she could have had Jesse.

“What about Jesse? You ever jealous of him.”

Oh. Shit.

The look on her face must have said it all, because Dina snorted a little and said, “Go for it. He wouldn’t care.”

Ellie took a deep breath and held it for a moment.

“It was when you told me that you were pregnant. I wasn’t jealous before we were together because I never thought for a minute that there was any way that you would ever want me, so why be jealous of someone who made you happy? But when you told me about JJ… I was jealous because JJ was his and I was scared that you would have gotten back with him because of it.”

Instead of the admonishment, she was expecting, Dina just shuffled forwards until their knees were touching, her hand instinctively brushing over JJ’s head, smoothing down his unruly hair.

“Okay, so… Real talk time. You ready for that?”

She wasn’t, but Ellie nodded anyway.

“I didn’t tell you at first not because I was thinking about going back to Jessie, but because I was terrified that it would mean you walking away from me. From…” Dina ran the back of a crooked finger over JJ’s pink cheek. “From us.”

“I…”

Ellie looked down at JJ – her little Potato – squealing and playing in her lap. He seemed delighted with his spot between the two of them. Keeping her eyes fixed on him, Ellie let it all out.

“I thought about it. But not because I didn’t want him. That… It didn’t even pop into my head. That moment that you told me, I felt this pull for him. It wasn’t love or anything yet, but I knew it could be. He was a part of you and I loved – _love_ – you so fucking much so it felt… I don’t know… Inevitable? Fuck, that sounds stupid. But… I was sure that you would go back to Jesse. So when he turned up and I was just proving again and again what I monster I was… You being pregnant isn’t what scared me. It was the thought of losing you. And that made me jealous of him. Even…” She sighed, embarrassed. “Even after…”

Dina’s fingers on her chin forced her to look up. Dina’s expression was a serious one, but she didn’t seem angry. Just… determined.

“Ellie, what I felt for Jesse and what I feel for you… Jessie was my best friend. I loved him so fucking much. But not the right way. Just because he was a guy doesn’t mean that I loved him the way everyone wanted me to. That’s not even a factor for me. Plus, I don’t think he loved me that way either. But you, Ellie, you’re… Fuck, this is going to sound corny, but I don’t give a shit. You’re my bashert.”

Ellie paused, puzzled. “I’m… what?”

“It’s a Jewish thing. Like soul mates only more… I don’t know how to explain it… Not like we’re supposed to be together, but more like… More like you’re my destiny. I guess. I don’t think I’m describing it right. Talia was always going on about it. Something about your soul jumping up to claim mine the moment mine got made. Or maybe the other way around. I thought it was just musy bullshit at the time, so I didn’t really pay attention. But she said I’d know when I found my bashert and I did. In a church, ironically. She’d be super pissed about that part.”

As corny as it was, Ellie got it.

“Does that mean that you’re my Bacher too?”

“Bashert. And that’s not for me to say. That’s for you to… Decide isn’t the word. ‘Know’, I guess? It’s all pre-decided. But like, not by someone else or God or anything. By us but before we were us. Or… Yeah, shit I have no clue.”

Ellie had learned a little more about Judaism on the farm. Dina wasn’t exactly religious, but the culture of it was significant to her. Having JJ know who he was and what he came from – that long line of survivors – was important, and Ellie had always been eager to learn and help. Though she didn’t believe and certainly couldn’t understand the concept of God in a world like this, she did understand faith and why people needed it. She just believed in something a little different.

She had faith in Dina. Had faith that they were… maybe not fated because that was way too deterministic for Ellie’s world view, but maybe they were a match. Two pieces of a puzzle that fit just right.

“You’re my bashert,” Ellie said confidently. “Maybe we can find a Jewish book or something that you can read about it in? They must have something at the bookstore.”

“Well,” said Dina, her eyes sparkling as she leant forward to rest her forehead against Ellie’s. “Lets stop worrying about ‘us’ then, huh? It’ll happen because it’s bashert. How and when… that doesn’t matter. What matters is that we’re here, together. The three of us.”

## Dina

Ellie was exhausted with the effort of playing with JJ and their talk on the floor, so Dina left her curled up on the couch whilst she took JJ up to bed and read softly to him about a sleepy leopard called Rosie until JJ himself drifted off to sleep. It took far less time than normal but he’d had a long, exciting day with Ellie. Even if they had both slept for a good portion of it.

Which was how she had expected to find Ellie on the couch, passed out, and maybe even snoring slightly. She definitely did not expect to see her sat forwards engrossed in the one book the Dina had meant to hide for a later date before Ellie had come home.

“Shit. I… I didn’t mean for you to see that yet.”

Ellie had tears running down her cheeks when she turned around, her eyes cold and accusatory.

“Yeah, why’s that? Because if I remember correctly you’re the one who didn’t want me to do this stuff.”

She tossed the book onto the coffee table and sat back, arms crossed, on the couch.

Dina took a deep breath, then made her way over to the couch. She glanced briefly at the book – “The History and Development of Vaccines: From Cowpox to Polio and Beyond” – then swiped it up to lay in her lap as she cautiously took the spot on the other end of the couch to Ellie.

“Because I wanted to learn about it. And because I didn’t want it lying around Jackson for anyone else to read.”

“And? What did you learn?”

Ellie’s tone hurt. Mostly because she didn’t even sound angry. Just hurt and confused.

“Well, it took a little while for me to get my head around some of it, but what I got from it is that – and I know you’re not going to want to hear this – there’s no way that the Fireflies could have ever made a vaccine. The technology and resources for that just don’t exist anymore. Reading this thing is like science fiction. Its not… It’s not something we’re capable of anymore.”

Ellie frowned and took the book from her lap.

“The beginning of this is way before any technology,” she countered. “They made a vaccine then.”

“Yeah, and the vaccines that they made were from less deadly versions of the diseases that were killing people. Like cowpox instead of smallpox. That doesn’t exist for the infected. You said yourself that the stuff you found in the hospital said that they could grow cordyceps from your blood, but we have no idea if it’s different than every other cordyceps. And even if it was, they would need to make so much of it that there’s no way that they could do it without a host. And it's not like it infects animals like they used to use in that book. I’ve never seen any infected chickens or mice, have you?”

“Of course not.”

“And the stuff they would need to grow it in in the lab, if they even could do it, is long gone. The facilities to make that sort of stuff are in ruins. The ingredients they need are gone. There’s no greater chance of them getting growth media and cells than there is of us ever tasting McDonald's. Reading this, the only conceivable way that they could manage it would be to infect other people with your blood and hope that it works. And Ellie…” Dina sighed. “It wouldn’t.”

“How do you know? It might!” Ellie said, her voice rising, then dropping as she looked up a the ceiling to where JJ slept above them.

“Because there’s no way that in everything that happened in Seattle that your blood didn’t once mix with mine when we were patching each other up. You cut your hand when you were cutting JJ’s cord. Your blood must have mixed with his then. And mine. And I’m not sick. I never got sick. Neither did he.”

“You might not know!”

“But you said that when you got bitten, you got sick first. You told me that at first you and Riley reacted the same. Until… until you didn’t. I never got sick.”’

“I don’t know… maybe? Maybe that was all in my head. I wasn’t exactly thinking straight.”

There was a joke in that that Dina had to dig her nails into her palm to avoid making. Because whilst it would be funny as hell, now really wasn’t the time.

“Unfortunate phrasing, but I’m letting it go.”

Ellie frowned, then shook her head. “But don’t you think it deserves a chance? That the world deserves a chance?”

“Say you’re right. Say it would work. Why would they have to kill you to make it work? If it could be transferred from your blood then why did they have to cut open your brain to get at it?”

“I… I don’t know.”

Ellie deflated a little, flipping through the book.

“Maybe they could have immunised someone else,” Dina began. “Maybe even a few people from what they got from you. But with no way to grow it in a lab or an animal, they would have to keep using people to get it. How many people would die because of that, Ellie? All because they would be desperate for a vaccine that would probably never work even if they killed half the people left to get it. Ellie, your life is not worth that tiny chance. A tiny chance that would mean hundreds or even thousands more people would have to die just for the sake of those people that the Fireflies or whoever got a hold of it decided were worthy of being immune.”

Ellie dropped her head into her hands and rubbed hard at her eyes.

“You sure about this?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I’m sure. You should read it.”

“Don’t need to. I don’t want to. I… I trust you.”

Dina relaxed. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

Ellie looked exshausted, but she smiled a little and Dina felt the gaping hole that had opened up in her belly close a little.

“Then we forget the fireflies?”

“Yeah. We forget about the Fireflies.”

The next three days went by quietly and easily. Any awkwardness that seeped back into their interactions after the book argument quickly melted away. Ellie seemed quiet but calm and JJ seemed to sense that she needed him close. He had taken to her like she had never been away, effortlessly accepting her into his life. For Dina it was harder. She lay awake most of the night just watching as Ellie slept, terrified of waking and finding her gone. Then in the morning, she felt almost resentful that Ellie was still there, broken and in need of constant supervision and attention. It felt like having another child in the house and that was the last thing that Dina wanted. Not because Ellie was a burden, but because she shouldn’t feel like she needed to mother her. And, honestly, she wasn’t sure how much of that was Ellie needing that support and how much of it was herself forgetting how to interact with someone who wasn’t JJ.

But… But if it had to be like that for a while, then so be it. Dina preferred it infinitely to the alternative. Even though having Ellie back was hard, losing her again would be the hardest thing of all.

Over next few days, despite the lingering anxiety that bubbled away in Dina’s stomach, the three of them formed a new kind of routine. Ellie insisted on sharing the cooking and cleaning, something she had never been eager to do on the farm. But looking back now, Dina could see that what she’d taken at the time for Ellie just enjoying the dynamic of Dina being in the kitchen whilst she was out on the farm – which Dina hadn’t exactly hated – may have had more to do with Ellie’s state of mind than anything else. Working the farm was solitary. She was outside with no walls to hem her in and a 360o view of the surrounding land, giving her the perfect vantage point to spot any would-be threats. Being alone in the barn had given Ellie the space to fall apart away from pittying eyes. A place to punish herself without contradiction.

Dina felt guilty as hell for giving her that space when clearly what she had needed was help.

Now with Ellie at least attempting to cook alongside her, it felt like something had shifted. Ellie might still be a long way from the Ellie she had been when Joel was still alive, but she wasn’t hiding that anymore. This time they were in it together. And maybe that would give Dina the space to admit that maybe she was a little messed up by everything that had happened too.

They stayed in that cocoon for three days before the food started running out. They talked about it and agreed that Ellie would venture out of the house. With Dina and JJ by her side, of course. Staying home alone was not an option right now. Not because Ellie would do something stupid or run away, but because without Dina to distract her and hold her accountable, they both knew how quickly she could spiral back into that self-hate.

So here they were, conducting the kind of ridiculous planning that had to go into leaving the house with a toddler and all the possible things that he might need.

“Feels weird not carrying a gun,” Ellie said as they stood in the hall, JJ in her arms as Dina fitted on his tiny little shoes.

“Your guns are in the safe. I can go get you one if you want. Or you can attempt to break into the safe with no clues. That should be fun to watch.”

“No, no, I… It feels weird not to carry one, but I don’t _want_ to carry one. Fuck, that doesn’t even make sense?”

“No, it does.” Dina lifted up her shirt a little to show the holster at her hip, a pistol on each side. “But just in case.”

Ellie seemed to relax a little at knowing that they had the option if they needed it. Jackson may be a sanctuary, but they both knew that could change in an instant.

“So, the farmers market, the general store and then the bookstore. Sound good?” Dina asked as she tightened the straps on her JJ-supplies backpack, pulling it up higher on her back.

“Sounds mildly terrifying but, yeah.”

“If you need to pass JJ to me at any time, just let me know. I know he’s getting heavy and-”

“And I’m a stringbean these days.”

“Well, yeah. Pretty sure that I could bench press you right now.”

“That’s… That’s fair.”

For the first few minutes of their walk, the early morning streets of Jackson were deserted. Which wasn’t surprising given the time. Which was exactly why they were out so ridiculously early. It was only as they rounded the corner onto Main Street that they bumped into Jilly and her son Jimmy, a boy around JJ’s age with big blue eyes and, in Dina’s opinion, a rather stupid, glazed look on his face.

“Oh my gosh, Dina! I haven’t seen you out in almost two weeks,” the over-excitable woman squealed. “How have you _beeeeeen_?”

Even the sound of her voice hurt Dina’s ears, but she was new and didn’t have the preconceptions towards her that everyone else did. So Dina was civil. Usually. Jilly didn’t seem to notice when she wasn’t.

“Just at home,” Dina said carefully, side-eyeing Ellie to make sure that she was okay.

“And who is this? You new here? She giving you the tour?” Jilly continued, unperturbed in her cheeriness. She bounced on her feet and Jimmy squealed. If Dina didn’t know any better, she’s think that JJ was side-eyeing him.

“This is Ellie, my…” Fuck, she hated the word partner. It sounded so platonic. “My wife. She’s JJ’s other Mom. She was away for a while and now she’s back.”

Both Ellie and Jilly understandably seemed blindsided by that. She’d never mentioned Ellie to Jilly – not that they were friends – and Ellie was clearly shell-shocked over the fact that Dina had just referred to her as her wife. Still, the only way now was forwards.

“Oh, that’s just wonderful! You must be so happy! Though I can’t imagine why you would want to leave Jackson, even for a little while,” Jilly said with a somewhat plastic-looking grin.

Dina just prayed that Ellie didn’t blurt out that she had been on a mission to kill a woman. Probably not the best first impression. Even if Abby _totally_ deserved it.

“Oh, you know, family stuff,” Ellie mumbled.

Not technically a lie.

Dina reached over to put a hand on Ellie’s arm and only belatedly realised that it exposed her weapons. She watched as Jilly’s eyes flicked to them, then away, colour leaching from her cheeks.

“Well, we’d best be getting on. Nice to meet you, Ellen.”

They stood there, frozen in her wake as the peppy, blonde woman and her son hurried off down the road.

“If she reacts like that to the sight of a pistol, I’d hate to see her reaction to my modded rifle,” Ellie deadpanned.

“Yeah… There may be something more going on there than I thought,” Dina said consideringly. Maybe Jilly’s cheery disposition belied something less happy. Well now Dina felt bad… “Farmer's market?”

“Sure… Wife.”

Dina blushed and blushed _deep_. “Shut up. I panicked.”

“Clearly.”

“I’m not calling you my girlfriend. Makes us sound like kids.”

“I’m 20. You’re 22.”

“Exactly. We’re _old_ now.”

“Whatever.”

The man at the farmer’s market was sick and the general store wasn’t officially open yet, so there was an honesty box on both counters. They gathered all the produce and other supplies that they needed without seeing another person. But then again, it was just after 6 am and Tuesday wasn’t exactly a busy shopping day.

The bookstore, though, was another matter. Old Johnny Kennedy was sat on the porch outside just like he always was. Pipe in one hand, book in another.

“Hey, Johnny,” Dina greeted. “We okay to go and look inside?”

There was a pause whilst he finished his page, but when he looked up his eyes visibly brightened when they landed on Ellie.

“Well if it isn’t Ellie Miller. I thought I heard Maria talking about you being back. How in the hell are you?”

_Shit. Shit. Shit._

Johnny was a good man and he clearly didn’t realise what he’d just done. It made sense that people would imagine that Ellie had Joel’s name but she very definitely did not and now-

“Hey, Johnny,” Ellies voice sounded strained but under control. “I’m good, thanks. Well, I’m sure you’ve heard that I’m not _good_ good, but I’m getting there.”

Dina relaxed a litte. Clearly, Ellie could handle herself. She shouldn’t assume otherwise.

“You kill the bitch?”

“Johnny!” Dina exclaimed.

That she could probably not handle.

“No, it’s fine,” Ellie reassured her. “No, I didn’t. She had a kid that she was looking after. Didn’t feel right. Just… Didn’t feel like the thing that Joel would want me to do. She was being held captive so I actually set her and the boy free. It’s over.”

“Well good on you, girl. That old man of yours would be proud.”

Dina looped her arm into Ellie’s and pulled her close. “He sure would.”

“And not least because you have the most sought after girl in Jackson on your arm,” Johnny joked. “I remember all those boys chasing after her and you’re the one that got the girl. There were a good few sniffing around when you were away too, but she’s a loyal one.”

“Sure am,” Dina said with an almost-unforced smile. “Hey, can we go and take a look at what you’ve got? Need some new books for JJ and maybe something for myself.”

“Of course, of course. On the house. Joel’s family doesn’t need to trade here. He was always my best customer and one hell of a man. And I’ve always respected the hell out of you too, Ellie.”

Dina felt Ellie trembling a little beside her.

“Thanks, Johnny.”

Once they were safe inside the dark, quiet shop, Dina pulled Ellie into her arms.

“You okay, babe?”

A sniffle, a couple of quick breaths, then the sound that Ellie made when she was trying to stop herself from crying.

“We’re squashing JJ,” Ellie sniffled, trying to pull back.

The boy in question had fallen asleep ten minutes ago after finally succumbing to the post-feeding sleepies. There was no way he was waking up anytime soon, now matter how much they jostled him.

“He’s fine. You’re not. Just let me hold you, okay?”

“Okay,” Ellie conceded. “He means well. He’s just a little… Johnny. I’m sorry he talked about you like that.”

Dina chuckled and pulled back enough to look Ellie in the eyes.

“That’s what you’re worried about? You’re worried that he upset me? I’ve heard a lot worse. And he’s clearly he’s a fan of you so he gets points for that.”

Ellie cheeks pinked.

“I’m proud of you,” Dina continued.

“I just talked to someone,” Ellie mumbled, dropping her head to hide behind JJ. It would have been annoying if it wasn’t so cute.

“Not just for that, El,” Dina whispered.

A slight smile appeared on Ellie’s face before she turned and stepped away, her embarrassment finally getting too much for her JJ shield to protect her from.

“Should we – uh – look for some books?”

Damn she was cute when she was nervous.

“Guess so.”

They scanned in silence. The only sound was JJ’s quiet JJ-noises as he dozed on Ellie’s shoulder.

“Hey Dina can you… I don’t think I can grab books and carry Potato.”

Dina’s searching gaze had just found the perfect book, so she snatched it up before making her way back across the shop to where Ellie was awkwardly holding JJ and trying to clutch multiple kids books in her hads.

“You know, when he said we could have these on the house I don’t think he was expecting you to clear out his toddler section.”

“Then he should have been more clear.”

“Ellie.”

“He shouldn’t have left it open to interpretation.”

“Ellie.”

“Fine. But I’m still getting four of them.”

“Two.”

“Three.”

“Fine, you dork.”

Ellie pushed the books into her arms. “You’re the dork.”

“Aha, sure comic book nerd. Now come one, pick yourself out a book and lets hit the road. He’ll be hungry once he wakes.”

“Fine, fine,” Ellie hummed as she took off towards the Sci-Fi and Fantasy section, obviously.

“Hey, is it okay if I get a book on trauma recovery?” Dina called across to her.

Ellie paused.

“Errr, yeah I guess. Why?”

“Just thought it could help.”

“Then… sure. Just promise me that you’re not going to try to be my therapist.”

“I promise. Just as long as you promise the same.”

Ellie turned and smiled. “Deal.”

If Dina could understand what it was the Ellie was going through, maybe she could help to get her there faster and less painfully. And maybe, whilst she was at it, Dina could try to sort out her own head.


End file.
